L 


HOW  TO  WRITE 

ADVERTISEMENTS 
THAT  SELL 


METHCJS  BT  WHICH  146 
SHREWD  ADVERTISERS  PIAN 
IAYOUI&PLACE  THEIR  COtY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2.011  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/howtowriteadvertOOawsh 


HOW  TO  WRITE 

ADVERTISEMENTS 

THAT  SELL 

HOW   TO    PLAN    EVERY    STEP 
IN   YOUR    CAMPAIGN  — USING 
SALES  POINTS,  SCHEMES  AND  INDUCE- 
MENTS—HOW TO  WRITE  AND   LAY  OUT 
COPY— CHOOSING  PROSPECT  LISTS  AND 
MEDIUMS— TESTS    AND   RECORDS 
THAT   INCREASE  RETURNS 

HOW  146  SHREWD  AD- 
VERTISERS PLAN  AND 
PLACE  THEIR  COPY 


A.  W.  SHAW  COMPANY 

CHICAGO        NEW  YORK 
A/W.  SHAW  COMPANY,  Ltd.,  LONDON 

1912 


#    eSS&InM!    0 


OTHER  "HOW- BOOKS" 

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How  to  Systematize  the  Day's  Work 
How  to  Get  More  Out  of  Your  Factory 
How  to  Increase  the  Sales  of  a  Store 
How  to  Sell  Real  Estate  at  a  Profit 
How  to  Sell  More  Life  Insurance 
How  to  Sell  More  Fire  Insurance 
How  to  Write  Letters  that  Win 
How  to  Talk  Business  to  Win 
How  to  Write  Advertisements  that  Sell 
How  Scientific  Management  is  Applied 
How  to  Sell  Office  Appliances  and  Supplies 
How  to  Get  More  Power  From  Coal 
How  to  Collect  Money  by  Mail 
How  to  Finance  a  Business 

Others  in  Preparation 


BUSINESS  MAN'S  ENCYCLOPEDIA 
{Two  Volumes) 


BUSINESS  MAN'S  LIBRARY 
{Ten  Volumes) 


BUSINESS  LAW  LIBRARY 

{Five  Volumes) 


BUSINESS  ADMINISTRATION 


THE  SYSTEM  OF  BUSINESS 
{Ten  Units— Thirty  Volumes) 

In  Preparation 


^K  THE  MAGAZINE  OF  MANAGEMENT  ^Qfr 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
A.  W.  SHAW  COMPANY 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 
HOW  TO  PLAN  AND  PREPARE 

What  Makes  Men  Buy 

Chapter  Page 

I  Finding  the  Vital  Selling  Points 7 

II  Rousing  the  Motives  that  Make  Men  Buy    ....  14 

III  Advertising  to  Sell  a  Single  Line  or  Product  ...  20 

IV  Making  Copt  Sell  Store  Products 26 

V  Combining  Appeals  to  Win  the  Average  Prospect    •  32 

PART  II 
NOVEL  WAYS  TO  REINFORCE  YOUR  COPY 

Clinching  Sales  by  Special  Appeal 

VI    Putting  Sales  Schemes  into  Copy 41 

VII    How  to  Use  Pictures  and  Samples 48 

PART  III 

HOW  TO  WRITE  THE  ADVERTISEMENT 
AND  MAKE  THE  LAYOUT 

Get  Greater  Pulling  Power 

VIII     Attention-Getting  Headlines  and  Displays  ....  57 

IX    Making  Copy  Plain  and  Interesting 62 

X    Writing  in  the  Reasons  Why 69 

XI    How  to  Word  Inducements  and  Insure  Response  .     .  75 

XII     Blocking  out  Your  Advertisement 80 

3 


4  CONTENTS 

PART  IV 

PLANNING  OUT  MEDIUMS.  SPACE  AND  APPROPRIATIONS 

Putting  Your  Campaign  Into  Effect 

Chapter  Paq« 

XIII  Locating  Your  High-Profit  Prospects 89 

XIV  Choosing  Profitable  Sales  Mediums  and  Lists  ...     95 
XV    How  Much  to  Spend  for  Advertising 100 

XVI    How  to  Start  the  Campaign 105 

PART  V 

RAISING  YOUR  AVERAGE  OF  RETURNS 

Holding  the  Stop  Watch  on  Your  Advertising 

XVII    Testing  to  Determine  Your  Best  Copy  and 

Mediums Ill 

XVIII    Making  the  Campaign  Measure  up  to  Test    .    .     .    .117 
XIX    Keeping  Reference  Records  and  Specimen 

Advertisements 120 

XX    How  to  Plan  Your  Next  Campaign  by  Past 

Averages 125 


II* 


What  Makes  Men  Buy 

ADVERTISING  is  one  of  three  great  selling  forces: 
The  salesman  speaking,  the  sales  letter  written,  the 
advertisement  printed,  all  aim  to  arouse  demand  for  goods 
— all,  through  their  various  mediums,  carry  the  one  vital 
message  that  makes  sales 

Advertising  is  more  than  proper  type  or  strong  layout, 
stylish  dress  for  page  or  circular;  more  than  honest  state- 
ment or  attention-getting  use  of  colors,  size  and  position; 
more  even  than  judgment  in  the  choice  of  efficient,  eco- 
nomical mediums;  more  than  business  ability  in  eliminat- 
ing dead  names  from  mailing  lists  and  getting  big  space 
value  for  the  season's  appropriation.  A  flaw  in  the 
mechanical  chain  of  advertising  often  lets  the  entire  cam- 
paign fall.  But  you  may  get  perfection  in  all  these  de- 
tails, and  your  advertising  still  will  fail,  until  you  find 
the  appeal  that  makes  men  buy. 

This  message  that  runs  through  sales  talk,  sales  letter  and 
sales  copy  is  the  central  strand  of  advertising  that  pulls. 
Does  it  grip  your  prospects?  Does  it  tell  them  of  the  in- 
most advantages  offered  in  your  product  and  sales  plan? 
Does  it  talk  your  wants  or  my  profits? 

The  skillful  copywriter  makes  his  message  rich  with  buy- 
ing reasons  and  buying  attractions — with  the  product's 
flavor  and  the  prospect's  deepest  desires.  He  knows  his 
goods  and  his  trade  so  well  that  to  every  foreseen  recoil 
or  turn  of  inattention  in  the  reader  he  matches  the  logical 
buying  impulse,  until  his  advertisement  neutralizes  and 
counteracts  every  prospect's  inclination  to  save,  to  put  off, 
to  reconsider  and  to  hesitate. 


■  II 


■  IB 


fir 


III 


HOW  TO  ANALYZE  YOUR 
ADVERTISING  PROBLEMS 

"a 

1 

CO 

o 
3 

60 

C 

o 

H 

I 

C 

I 

s 

Q 
a 

CO 

o 

"S 

u 

Buying 
Action 
Required 

Increased  Expenditure  of 
Prospect's  Money 

Only  a  Change  in  Direction 
of  Present  Expenditure 

Class 

A 

B 

c 

D 

Character! 

of 
Product 

Unfamiliar  and 

Without  Ready 

Demand 

Unfamiliar  but 

Matching 

Unexpressed 

Demand 

Familiar  but 
Offered  in  an 
Unusual  Way 

Similar  to 

Goods  Prospect 

Regularly  Buys 

in  Same  Way 

Attitude 

of 
Prospect 

Thinks  He  Is 
Doing  Well 

Enough 
without  It 

Will    Realize 

Need  When 

Informed  of 

Product 

Habitually  Buys 

Similar  Brand 

in  Another 

Way 

Now  Does 

Equivalent 

Buying 

Task  of 
Sales  Cam- 
paign and 

Ad- 
vertising 

Must  Make 
Him  Feel  His 
Disadvantage 

Must  Teach 
Him  What 
Product  Is. 

Must  Lead  Him 
to  Change 
This  Habit 

Must 
Emphasize 
Brand  to  Get 

Dominant 
Tone  of 
Copy  to 
Fit  Task 

Persuasive  and 
Impelling 

Analytical  and 
Descriptive 

"Reason  Why" 

Suggestive 
or  "Publicity" 

. 

Money 

X 

X 

2 

a 
5 

< 
o 

05 

u 

> 

O 

s 

Utility 

X 

X 

\ 

Caution 

X 

X 

Pride 

X 

s 
CQ 

Self- 
indulgence 

X 

X 

Different  sale 
emphasis  on 
develop  the  t 

:s  and  advertisin 
different  selling  p 
ssentials  of  any 

I  problems  requi 
Dints.   This  chart 
idvertising  probl 

•e  different  kinds 
has  shown  advert 
em  and  score  unu 

of  copy  and 
isers  how  to 
sual  success 

in; 


;Z!i2 


CHAPTER  I 
Finding  the  Vital  Selling  Points 

WHEN  you  sit  down  to  pencil  a  hasty  advertise- 
ment for  the  next  issue  of  the  local  paper,  or 
to  marshal  sales  scheme,  copy,  electrotypes,  space  con- 
tracts, printed  matter,  follow-ups,  test  records  and  all 
the  services  of  a  complete  advertising  campaign,  there 
is  one  four-fold  question  that  in  time  and  importance, 
should  come  before  everything  else. 

What  does  the  buyer  want  ?  How  does  your  product 
fit  that  want?  What  tone  should  dominate  your  adver- 
tisement, and  what  should  be  its  chief  appeals  for 
trade?  In  the  answers  to  those  questions  you  have 
the  foundation  of  successful  advertising — the  center  and 
heart  of  the  message  your  campaign  should  carry. 

Knowledge  of  your  product  in  itself  is  not  enough; 
you  must  know  your  product  in  relation  to  its  prospect- 
ive purchaser. 

The  proprietor  of  a  machine  shop  in  a  prairie  state 
began  to  advertise  traction  engines  for  farm  service.  He 
was  a  keen  mechanician,  and,  carried  away  with  the  un- 
usually strong  talking  points  of  his  line,  he  built  adver- 
tisement after  advertisement  on  the  points  of  technical 
perfection  in  his  tractors. 

Although  seasonably  placed  in  reliable  farm  journals 


8  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

covering  a  section  where  the  use  of  tractors  is  feasible 
for  several  purposes,  the  advertising  failed  to  pay. 

,The  engine  maker  called  in  a  trusted  field  represent- 
ative and  together  the  two  men  went  over  the  advertise- 
ments. 

1  'Why,"  said  the  field  man,  "this  is  the  kind  of  argu- 
ment I  should  use  in  appealing  to  a  technical  expert. 
But  you  cannot  begin  by  arguing  the  technical  points 
with  a  farmer.  He  knows  all  about  horses,  and  he 
knows  almost  nothing  about  traction  engines.  He  can 
buy  and  sell,  train,  handle  and  doctor  his  horses.  He 
knows  just  what  they  are  good  for  and  how  to  estimate 
the  work  he  can  do  with  them  this  week. 

"The  expense  of  maintaining  his  teams  is  as  much  a 
matter  of  course  with  him  as  his  own  food  and  shelter. 
But  so  far  as  the  question  of  buying  a  traction  engine 
goes,  it  represents  aoi  extra  and  unthought  of  expense, 
without  which  he  thinks  he  is  getting  along  perfectly 
well. 

1 '  Before  he  is  willing  to  talk  technical  points  with  you, 
you  must  awaken  in  him  a  feeling  that  he  is  missing  an 
advantage  which  will  soon  more  than  pay  for  itself.' ' 

The  later  advertisements  took  the  new  tone.  They 
spoke  of  the  engine  as  "  an  iron  horse, ' '  and  compared  it, 
point  by  point,  with  the  farm  horse.  What  each  con- 
sumed; how  each  was  driven;  what  each  could  do  per 
day  and  per  acre ;  was  told  with  apt  comparison. 

And  this  advertisement,  with  its5  homely  allusions;  its 
direct  appeal  to  the  farmer's  ever  present  need  for  bet- 
ter horse  flesh;  its  appeal  to  consider  the  farm  engine 
only  as  a  bigger  and  more  profitable  draught  animal; 
its  sweeping  proof  that  the  farmer  was  not  getting  on 
well  enough  without  the  tractor — brought  exceedingly 
profitable  returns. 


THE  VITAL  SELLING  POINTS  9 

It  was  an  experience  full  of  points  on  actually  mak- 
ing over  an  advertisement  and  adding  the  proper  style 
and  selling  appeal,  just  as  the  sales  manager  takes  out 
a  green  recruit  and  puts  into  his  canvass  the  points 
that  sell. 

Imitation  will  not  take  the  place  of  this  analysis  in 
advertising.  Studying  successful  advertising,  instead 
of  products  and  prospects,  is  not  sufficient.  Because 
suggestion  in  copy  is  used  by  a  successful  merchant, 
does  not  prove  that  publicity  copy  is  good  for  you.  It 
is  much  easier  to  learn  from  the  cemetery  of  advertising 
failures,  than  to  imitate  any  one  advertising  success. 

What  your  competitor's  advertising  lacks,  he  may 
make  up  by  prestige  or  personal  sales  skill.  His  copy 
may  have  some  element  of  strength  you  do  not  recog- 
nize ;  or  he  may  be  succeeding  in  spite  of  his  advertising 
mistakes. 

But  when  the  addition  of  a  single  appeal  changes  one 
of  your  own  familiar  copy  failures  to  success,  the  lesson 
is  plain. 

Instead  of  wasting  the  time  of  storekeepers  with  in- 
terviews on  why  products  are  not  moving  out  nicely,  and 
thus  by  roundabout  methods  getting  the  common  sense 
view  of  its  selling  field,  one  concern  has  for  years  kept 
an  analytical  record  of  its  various  products,  the  varieties 
of  copy  proved  to  be  effective  or  futile  and  the  various 
appeals  made  in  these  advertisements  which  successfully 
marketed  varied  products.  A  chart  based  upon  these 
records  for  several  years,  appears  on  page  6. 

Getting  the  Formula  by  Which  to  Solve  the  Problem  of 
Right  Copy 

The  first  question  that  is  asked  when  the  marketing 
of  a  product  is  analyzed  with  the  aid  of  the  Advertising 


10  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

Chart  is :  "Must  this  advertising  induce  an  outright  ex- 
penditure on  the  prospect's  part;  or  merely  change  the 
direction  of  expenditure  to  which  he  is  accustomed? 
Must  he  decide^to  spend  for  it,  or  merely  to  choose  it  in 
place  of  something  else ! ' ' 

Following  out  the  analysis  of  products,  we  find  four 
classes  to  be  important.  If  you  are  offering  your  pros- 
pect some  new  device  to  stop  a  known  loss  in  his  busi- 
ness, he  is  in  position  "B"  on  the  chart.  "I've  wanted 
something  like  that,"  he  exclaims;  and  having  long 
planned  to  make  such  a  purchase  when  opportunity 
offered,  the  expenditure  goes  through  on  an  * '  O.  K. ' '  of 
previous  standing.  You  need  only  explain,  describe 
and  analyze  your  product  to  show  him  that  it  is  what 
he  has  needed. 

If,  however,  you  begin  to  market  something  unex- 
pected and  unwished  for,  which,  on  its  face,  appears  to 
be  merely  an  extra  expense,  your  prospect  is  then  in 
position  "A".  He  thinks  that  he  is  doing  well  enough 
without  your  interference. 

In  this  case  your  advertisement  must  do  exactly  what 
a  good  salesman  would  do.  It  must  not  only  develop 
the  possibility  of  more  profit  through  your  article ;  but 
must  make  the  prospect  feel  keenly  the  disadvantage  and 
loss  of  being  without  it.  It  must  inspire  him  with  a 
desire  for  bigger  things;  and  persuade  him  to  make  an 
unfamiliar  outlay  for  the  untried  advantage  it  may  be 
to  him.  "B"  stands  waiting  for  you  to*  come  and  offer 
him,  what  you  have — "A"  is  going  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion; you  must  stop  him,  turn  him  about  and  take  him 
your  way. 

In  such  classes  of  commodities  as  are  in  habitual  use 
by  your  prospect,  however,  there  is  a  further  distinction, 
represented  in  the  chart  by  classes  "C"  and  "D".   All 


THE  VITAL  SELLING  POINTS  11 

of  us  must  have  food  and  clothing.  All  of  us,  in 
one  or  another  group,  must  have  paper  and  pencils,  or 
nails  and  cement.  If,  when  you  advertise  goods  similar 
in  kind  and  price  to  those  I  am  buying  day  by  day, 
you  can  make  the  name  of  your  brand  come  into  my 
mind  more  often  and  more  strongly  than  your  rival's, 
you  have  won  my  trade.  Under  favorable  circumstances 
suggestive  or  publicity  copy  may,  in  this  case,  win — 
you  find  me  walking  in  your  direction  and  need  only  to 
catch  step. 

If,  however,  your  brand  of  bread  must  be  ordered 
from  town,  when  I  am  used  to  buying  at  my  home  cor- 
ner; or  your  coal  must  be  ordered  by  mail,  when  your 
competitor's  salesman  comes  to  my  door,  your  copy 
must  change  a  habit  of  mine.  And  a  change  of  habit 
must  have  a  reason  back  of  it.  Your  advertisement 
must  be  ' '  reason  why ' '  copy.  It  finds  me  in  the  position 
of  a  man  walking  past  your  door — you  must  give  me  a 
reason  for  turning  in  at  your  place  of  business. 

This  fourfold  classification  suggests  the  essential  links 
between  your  product  and  its  prospect  through  its  adver- 
tisement. Any  variety  of  advertising  may  pay  you ;  but 
in  all  except  the  one  best  kind,  a  part  of  your  space 
and  appropriation  is  given  over  to  meeting  points  on 
which  your  prospect  is  already  sold.  The  advertisement 
of  highest  average  efficiency  must  put  its  whole  strength 
against  the  point,  or  points  which  are  actually  blocking 
the  sale. 

Shall  You  Make  Your  Copy  Mere  Publicity  or  Let  the 
Persuasive  Style  Dominate? 

A  recent  advertising  campaign  played  up  the  qualities 
and  advantages  of  an  improved  toilet  article.  The  cam- 
paign failed. 


12  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

Field  study  of  prospects  proved  that  the  product  was 
not  in  class  C  nor  B ;  but  in  class  A.  Men  were  doing 
well  enough  without  it.  They  were  not  converted  to 
spend  extra  money  to  get  it.  And  the  copy  took  for 
granted  that  prospects  were  favorable  on  these  two  vital 
points ! 

When,  however,  the  latest  novel  comes  out  in  a  re- 
peat edition  which  testifies  to  its  popularity,  description 
is  sufficient.  It  falls  into  that  class  of  commodities  for 
which  an  eager  public  is  waiting. 

The  street  car  and  billboard  are  crowded  with  in- 
stances of  so-called  publicity  copy  covering  products  in 
class  "D'\  A  reproduction  in  colors  of  the  gum  wrap- 
per, the  cigar  or  the  soda  fountain  glass,  is  sometimes 
sufficient,  by  its  mere  repetition,  to  influence  us  in  the 
minor  purchases  of  the  day. 

But  a  great  deal  of  the  merchandise  commonly  classed 
here,  belongs  in  class  " C"  and  demands  much  stronger 
copy. 

It  takes  something  more  than  suggestion  t(\  make  the 
housewife  risk  her  expensive  woolens  and  laces  with  a 
soap  which  habit  has  not  made  familiar.  It  often  means 
a  decided  change  in  buying  habit  for  her  to  demand  a 
particular  brand  of  rice,  corn,  starch  or  cocoa,  against 
which  her  grocer  very  probably  will  make  a  protest 

How  Correct  Diagnoses  of  Your  Sales  Problems  En- 
ables You  to  Get  Larger  Returns 

Two  high  salaried  advertising  men  recently  built  test 
campaigns — one  with  such  a  chart  of  advertising  prob- 
lems, the  other  without  it. 

The  Boston  man  without  the  chart,  unconsciously 
diagnosed  his  selling  problem  as  belonging  in  class  "A" 
He  devoted  almost  two-thirds  of  his  672-line  space  to  a 


THE  VITAL  SELLING  POINTS  13 

class  "A"  appeal,  urging  business  men  to  think  how 
much  the  lack  of  this  article  was  handicapping  them, 
and  persuading  them  to  buy.  Where  ninety-six  orders 
would  have  cleared  a  margin  of  profit,  he  received 
forty-four ;  where  twenty-six  were  hoped  for  on  the  same 
copy,  he  received  seven. 

Meantime  the  Philadelphia  advertising  man,  after  a 
careful  study  of  the  chart  and  field,  decided  that  a 
market  already  existed  for  this  product  and  that  de- 
scriptive copy  would  sell  it  more  efficiently  than  any 
other  variety. 

Their  copy  was  crossed  in  newspapers  and  again  in 
magazines.  Orders  constantly  cost  the  man  who  had 
studied  and  charted  out  his  product  and  his  field,  about 
thirty  per  cent  of  the  selling  price,  as  against  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-three  per  cent  for  his  more  eminent 
associate. 

The  Advertising  Chart  will  not  eliminate  errors  en- 
tirely. It  is  not  a  cure-all,  but  a  guide  in  finding  the 
essential  factors  of  successful  selling.  Unless  you  study 
it  closely  and  practice  in  classifying  various  products 
by  its  aid,  you  may  make  a  fundamental  mistake  in 
placing  your  sales  problem  upon  it. 

If,  however,  you  will  go  over  your  problem  in  field 
and  office,  shop  or  factory  until  you  can  say  with  cer- 
tainty that  your  product  fits  the  conditions  of  class  A, 
B,  C  or  D  on  the  chart,  the  scheme  of  your  copy  will 
at  once  become  plain.  You  will  have  determined  the 
dominant  tone  of  both  words  and  illustrations,  and 
can  proceed  with  confidence. 


CHAPTER  II 

Rousing  the  Motives  that  Make 
Men  Buy 

BEHIND  his  decision  to  buy  or  not  to  buy,  every 
one  of  your  store  or  factory  prospects  has  a  motive. 
He  may  have  many  motives. 

And  the  average  of  these  individual  motives,  or 
groups  of  individual  motives,  will  give  those  strongest 
springs  of  action  to  which,  through  persuasion,  descrip- 
tion, logic  or  suggestion,  your  advertisement  should  ap- 
peal, in  order  to  sell  your  goods. 

In  the  lower  part  of  the  Advertising  Chart,  these 
motives  are  classified  according  to  the  analysis  used  by 
dozens  of  successful  salesmen,  under  five  arbitrary 
heads : 

1.  Gain  or  saving  of  money. 

2.  Some  utility,  such  as  use,  necessity,  convenience, 
happiness,  love,  moral  considerations. 

3.  Pride  and  emulation. 

4.  Caution. 

5.  Some  self-indulgence  or  personal  flaw,  such  as 
laziness,  vanity,  subservience,  appetite. 

Every  blend  of  human  motives  that  prompts  buying 
can,  it  is  believed,  be  suggestively  classified  under 
these  heads. 

u 


ROUSING  BUYING  MOTIVES  15 

Having  decided  that  the  tone  of  your  advertising 
copy  shall  be  persuasive,  descriptive,  logical  or  sug- 
gestive, your  appeal  will  still  be  made  blindly  unless 
you  decide  which  one  or  more  of  these  five  springs  of 
action  that  copy  shall  address.  And  this  depends  di- 
rectly upon  the  desires  your  groceries,  fruits,  dry  goods 
or  lumber  awaken  in  the  ordinary  folk  to  whom  you 
look  for  the  bulk  of  your  trade. 

How  Other  Motives  than   Money   Gain   Often   Bring 
about  the  Sale 

The  most  elementary  appeal  is  to  offer  your  pros- 
pect a  money  saving  or  gain  through  his  purchase. 
Any  periodical  you  pick  up  will  give  examples  of  bar- 
gain sale  headings:  " Direct  from  the  works,  saves  40 
per  cent";  "At  factory  prices  on  approval ",  "Dis- 
count for  cash",  "Bargains",  and  so  on. 

Most  sales  schemes  are  directed  to  this  motive  of 
money  gain — the  one  resort  of  the  advertiser  who  is 
blindly  groping  his  way.  The  money  appeal  affords 
the  big  outlet  that  accommodates  supply  to  demand. 
By  a  quick  shift  of  price,  and  a  limited  time  appeal  to 
the  money  motive,  stocks  of  all  sorts  and  under  every 
condition  are  closed  out  with  a  margin  of  profit  or 
salvage. 

Over-emphasis  on  this  money  motive,  however,  loses 
prestige  and  patronage  for  your  store,  if  your  prospects 
want  some  utility,  as  quality  or  convenience  rather 
than  cheapness. 

An  eastern  shopkeeper  who  made  his  own  sales  stock 
of  cards  and  brochures,  found  profits  slumping.  He 
reduced  prices  and  his  trade  rose  for  a  time;  but  not 
enough  to  cover  the  cut  in  his  rates.  Again  he  reduced 
prices,  and  again  his  sales  established  a  new  record. 


16  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

But  he  was  nearer  bankruptcy  than  ever.  Then  it 
came  to  him  that  it  could  not  be  the  price  of  a  "2-for-5" 
post-card  or  a  12%-cent  brochure  that  stood  between 
him  and  sales.  It  might  even  be  that  his  cut  rates  had 
lost  caste  for  him  with  the  well-to-do  trade  which  had 
formerly  frequented  his  shop.  And,  in  the  search  for 
a  motive  that  had  formerly  brought  buyers  to  him, 
he  found  that  the  residence  district  had  gradually 
changed  its  character.  The  trade  to  which  his  dainty 
printed  matter  had  appealed,  was  now  passing  down 
another  thoroughfare  in  its  daily  routine. 

His  deciding  grip  on  trade  apparently  had  been  the 
utility  of  his  service — the  handy  location  of  his  little 
shop.  No  cut  in  price  could  bridge  the  gap  left  when 
this  link  dropped  out.  Not  even  the  best  " reasons- why' ' 
that  he  could  write  succeeded  in  changing  the  new 
habit  of  his  former  trade.  A  change  in  business  loca- 
tion, or  in  the  character  of  his  stock  and  trade,  was 
essential  to  the  renewed  success  of  his  advertising  and 
selling  efforts.    He  moved — and  throve. 

An  advertisement  whose  success  may  be  judged  from 
its  persistence  in  one  tone,  reads : 

"On  Christmas  morning  the  notes  of  affectionate 
greeting  possess  the  added  charm  of  extreme  good  form 
and  taste  if  written  on  Washington  Linen  Paper.  Three 
styles  especially  made  for  particular  women  are — " 

Pride  in  the  dignity  and  good  taste  of  certain  sta- 
tionery is  the  moving  appeal  in  this  advertising  cam- 
paign, when  an  appeal  to  the  money  motive  would 
not  interest  those  who  are  prospects  for  this  grade  of 
note  paper. 

The  manufacturer  of  a  patent  door  strip  solved  an 
interesting  problem  in  buying  motives.  He  first  put  his 
product  on  the  market  with  an  incomplete  appeal  to  the 


ROUSING  BUYING  MOTIVES  17 

trite  utility  motive  only.  His  copy  was  full  of  talk 
about  the  cleanliness  and  comfort  his  product  would 
bring.  People  did  not  buy.  Then  he  changed  his  adver- 
tising and  printed  a  picture  of  a  nursery  where  dust- 
laden  floor  drafts  constantly  threatened  the  health  of 
the  children.     His  product  began  to  move  nicely. 

What  this  manufacturer  unconsciously  did  was  to 
re-classify  his  product,  taking  it  out  of  class  "B"  and 
putting  it  into  class  "A" — changing  the  tone  of  his 
copy  from  description  to  strong  persuasion — empha- 
sizing the  disadvantage  of  being  without  his  product. 
At  the  same  time,  from  an  appeal  to  mere  comfort  and 
convenience,  he  changed  to  a  much  stronger  appeal 
directed  at  the  motive  of  caution,  and  the  high  utility 
motive  of  parental  love. 

Thus  the  Advertising  Chart  bares  the  false,  or  warm 
and  human  appeal  in  any  advertisement.  Good  copy- 
will  not  insure  the  success,  nor  poor  copy  the  complete 
failure  of  every  campaign,  for  at  each  step  between 
factory  and  consumer  lurk  chances  of  error  or  unusual 
advantage  in  selling;  but  averages  count!  The  copy- 
man  who  throws  aside  a  weak  advertisement  unstudied 
and  starts  to  frame  up  something  more  compelling, 
loses  a  chance  to  profit  by  a  costly  test.  Analysis — 
test  for  the  dominating  tone  of  your  sales  impulse  and 
for  motive  appeal — should  precede  revision. 

Analysis  of  Buying  Motives  the  Right  Basis  for  All 
Selling  Plans  and  Efforts 

Not  only  the  advertisement,  but  also  the  personal 
sale  and  the  business  conference  are  being  brought  to 
first  principles  by  clever  use  of  this  scheme  of  charts. 
All  of  us  want  dozens  of  things  that  we  do  not  purchase 
3r  assent  to.    What  hinders  us  from  buying  is  the  mahi 


18  [WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUT 

object  against  which  to  direct  your  advertising  and 
sales  talk.  The  printer  is  wishing  for  a  power  cutter 
to  relieve  hard  work  and  increase  output.  He  knows 
the  power  cutter  will  do  these  things;  yet  he  does  not 
buy.  The  clever  salesman  will  also  meet  the  printer's 
ideas  of  economy  and  other  appeals  that  will  win  over 
assent  to  the  unfamiliar  item  of  cost. 

Moreover,  buying  motives  change  constantly.  The 
haberdasher  whose  straw  hat  sale  is  announced  on  a 
rainy  morning,  fails  because  the  money  motive  to  which 
he  appealed  has  been  eclipsed  by  a  utility  motive. 
With  every  special  occasion,  every  change  in  price  and 
quality,  and  with  the  restricted  appeals  to  various 
groups  of  prospects,  new  motives  come  into  play. 

In  fact,  the  dominance  of  different  motives  in  dif- 
ferent classes  of  trade  underlies  competition.  The  low 
priced  article  makes  its  money-saving  appeal  to  one 
class;  the  medium  priced  article,  its  utility  appeal  to 
the  middle  class;  and  the  Fifth  Avenue  or  Michigan 
Avenue  shop,  its  appeal  to  pride,  exclusiveness  and  van- 
ity of  still  higher  classes.  The  fitness  of  certain  wood- 
working tools  for  interior  work  and  of  another  brand 
for  rough,  fast  outdoor  construction,  may  touch  the  dif- 
ferent utilities  that  sway  householders,  carpenters  and 
constructors.  And  with  the  variation  of  motive,  often 
comes  a  need  for  varied  tones  in  your  advertisement. 

Again,  your  appeal  must  be  general  in  order  to  pay. 
There  may  be  a  true  and  vital  appeal  which  fails  to 
reach  the  average. 

A  telephone  company  recently  inserted  in  a  morning 
newspaper  an  advertisement  addressed  to  "June 
Brides,' '  and  reminding  them,  in  a  clever  way,  of  the 
handiness  in  housekeeping  and  safety,  and  as  "  com- 
pany' '  during  the  lonely  hours  in  the  new  home,  whicK 


HOUSING  BUYING  MOTIVES  19 

a  telephone  represents.  Did  this  piece  of  copy  reach 
the  average  telephone  prospect  who  reads  the  morning 
paper,  or  a  profitable  proportion  of  such  prospects! 

The?  same  seasonable  appeal  could  have  been  widened 
to  include  a  half  dozen  great  groups  of  prospects  with 
the  same  clever  reminder.  Would  not  lonely  Mothers 
have  been  glad  to  put  in  the  telephone  in  order 
to  talk  with  the  ''June  Brides"  who  had  just  left  the 
old  home  ?  Would  not  other  Housewives  have  been  espe- 
cially open  just  then  for  the  reminder  that  in  their 
housekeeping  they  had  never  yet  known  the  conveni- 
ence of  a  telephone  ?  Would  not  the  June  percentage  of 
new  telephones,  year  by  year,  have  been  a  vital  appeal 
to  the  Grocer  and  Marketman  to  keep  their  one-way 
telephone  facilities  up  to  the  possibilities  of  their  trade  ? 

Pretty  pictures,  catchy  phrases  and  unsuitable  me- 
diums multiply  casual  readers  who  are  not  prospective 
buyers.  A  common-sense  appeal,  however,  based  on  a 
sound  analysis  of  your  proposition  and  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  motives  that  actuate  your  average 
prospects  in  such  buying,  builds  trade. 

Before  you  begin  to  word  an  advertisement,  therefore, 
check  those  of  the  five  classes  of  motives  in  your  best 
prospects,  to  which  your  strongest  appeals  can  be  made ; 
under  each  heading  so  marked  list  the  actual  desires 
your  product  touches,  then  go  over  your  list  and  choose 
from  all  the  three  or  four  strongest  specific  motives 
upon  which  to  base  your  advertisement. 

By  the  use  of  the  Advertising  Chart,  and  through 
practice  in  analyzing  the  advertising  problems  of  va- 
rious products,  prospects  and  motives,  you  can  put  a 
direct,  decisive  "drive"  into  your  writing.  Your  aver- 
age copy  work  becomes  stronger.  Poor  tests  are  mini- 
mized— and  capitalized. 


CHAPTER  III 

Advertising  to  Sell  a  Single  Line  or 
Product 

WITH  the  general  store  advertiser,  the  problem  is 
to  build  a  profit-making  trade  on  recurring  de- 
mand for  many  lines,  regardless  of  whether  a  single 
product  fails.  He  meets  glutted  demand  with  new 
products  that  develop  new  wants.  But  the  one-line 
advertiser  has  concentrated  on  a  single  product — when 
demand  fails  him,  he  must  over-ride  competition  or  de- 
velop new  outlets. 

A  single  line  advertiser  often  takes  a  national  or 
world-wide  field;  he  is  then  separated  from  his  pros- 
pects by  distance.  He  often  relies  upon  a  closely  re- 
stricted class  for  trade;  sometimes  he  can  count  upon 
only  one  sale  to  each  buyer  in  a  season  or  a  lifetime. 
He  cannot  stimulate  trade  through  bargains  or  leaders, 
other  than  in  his  own  line  or  in  the  inducements  and 
service  he  offers. 

His  advantages  are  that  he  can  concentrate  his  adver- 
tising and  selling  on  one  subject;  can  fully  develop  its 
qualities  and  uses;  can  appeal  distinctly  to  different 
prospect  groups,  by  assorted  grades  or  qualities  of 
product,  through  various  mediums  and  by  means  of 
the  whole  gamut  of  motives  that  actuate  these  classes. 

20 


SELLING  A  SINGLE  LINE  W 

The  novel  that  first  runs  as  a  magazine  serial,  is  then 
published  for  a  season  at  $1.50,  later  handed  to  an 
allied  publisher  for  additional  profits  on  the  50c  edi- 
tion, and  finally  turned  over  to  a  newspaper  syndicate 
for  newspaper  serial  rights.  At  every  step  a  new  group 
of  prospects  is  developed  and  satisfied.  And  this  is  the 
typical  problem  of  the  single  line  advertiser;  whether 
he  be  an  international  publisher  or  a  small  town  tailor, 
hatter  or  bicycle  dealer. 

In  planning  a  campaign  to  advertise  a  single  product, 
therefore,  anatyses  and  tests  are  indispensable  to  trace 
the  line  of  diminishing  returns  from  each  prospect  growp 
and  to  open  up  new  fields  of  profit.  It  is  doubly  essen- 
tial that  the  single  line  advertiser  should  know  all  the 
time  to  what  group  he  is  appealing,  in  what  position 
they  are  toward  his  product,  what  attractions  he  can 
offer  each  class,  what  tone  of  copy  best  suits  his  propo- 
sition and  precisely  what  motives  in  each  group  wiN 
be  most  powerful  to  make  or  block  the  purchase. 

Your  Prospects  and  Hoiv  to  Pick    Them  from  the 
Field  of  Demand 

"Dog-in-the-manger"  tactics  are  poor  advertising,  in 
planning  your  copy  never  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
not  readers,  nor  even  inquiries,  but  orders  and  profits 
make  good  advertising.  Do  not  shout  merely  to  inter- 
rupt the  man  in  the  half-page  next  to  yours;  waste 
no  space  or  money  addressing  poor  prospects;  get  a 
mental  map  and  portrait  of  your  prospect  group  in 
each  medium  and  of  the  task  your  copy  must  perform 
in  that  situation ;  with  all  your  power,  focus  your  appeal 
where  it  belongs. 

Puns,  plays  upon  words,  pretty  portraits — these  at- 
tract idle  readers  as  sugar  draws  flies;  but  this  power, 


22  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

applied  through  selling  appeal  in  other  good  mediums, 
might  be  reaching  more  groups  of  actual  prospects. 

The  state  and  federal  census  are  full  of  information 
that  helps  the  single  line  advertiser  to  get  the  attention 
of  his  particular  prospect  groups  without  wasting  the 
attention  of  other  readers.  Far  more  complete  analysis 
of  such  statistics  means  the  conservation  of  millions  in 
advertising.  Many  periodicals  compile  tables  analyzing 
population  by  trades,  professions,  location  (city, 
suburban  and  country),  by  income,  reading  habits,'  pur- 
chasing habits  and  various  other  useful  lines  of  cleavage. 
On  this  data  you  can  base  important  divisions  in  your 
advertising  campaign.  "With  the  problem  set  before  you, 
ingenuity  will  show  how  to  get  different  facts  about 
your  particular  prospects.  Clever  tables  which  describe 
the  buying  power,  habits,  prejudices  and  motives  of 
the  prospects  for  the  line,  are  the  basis  of  almost  every 
campaign  which  is  consistently  successful. 

Having  secured  this  information  through  public,  busi- 
ness and  private  records  and  investigations,  circular 
letter  campaigns  and  advertising  tests,  the  advertiser 
finds  the  Advertising  Chart  illuminating  with  regard 
to  the  variety  and  aim  of  his  copy.  He  makes  his  offer 
inclusive  to  reach  various  motives,  using  the  strongest 
appeals  at  beginning  and  close  of  his  advertisement; 
or  day  by  day  adding  new  appeals  to  his  campaign. 
Thus  the  advertisement  and  campaign  can  be  given 
unity,  comprehensiveness,  balance,  cohesion,  punch. 

How  to  Widen  Your  Appeal  and  Reach  New  Groups 
of  Consumers 

Modern  business  makes  for  mushroom  competition.  A 
new  product  finds  rivals  full  grown  over  night.  The 
single  line  dealer  who  would  succeed  must  either — (1) 


SELLING  A  SINGLE  LINE  23 

have  some  stronger  appeal  on  which  buying  hinges;  or 
—  (2)  take  advantage  in  his  advertising  of  some  weak- 
ness in  competing  sales  plans. 

Dozens  of  noted  national  advertisers  sat  in  obscurity 
until  better  and  better  directed  copy  lifted  them  above 
competition.  The  single  product  manufacturer  must 
study  competition  and  develop  better  copy,  clever  ways 
to  simplify  buying  routine  and  form  favorable  buying 
habits.  He  must  beware  of  mere  publicity  which  " sells 
substitutes"  wherever  his  distribution  is  at  fault  and 
often  at  the  very  counters  where  his  salesmen  look  for 
most  results.  He  spends  a  part  of  his  appropriation  to 
know  his  prospects;  he  then  makes  his  advertising  apt. 
We  run  through  ten  pages  of  vacation  resort  advertising 
« — a  deafening  array  of  names — a  cutthroat  clamor  for 
attention — to  stop  and  fix  upon  a  spot  which  offers  apt 
facts  and  reasons  why  we  will  enjoy  an  outing  there. 

If  your  product  itself,  as  well  as  your  advertising,  is 
better  than  competition,  success  is  doubly  sure.  Whether 
you  are  writing  class  A,  B,  or  C  copy,  make  these  advan- 
tages plain — decisive  with  the  buyer.  Give  the  prospect 
sound  reasons  for  going  out  of  his  way  to  resist  substi- 
tution; for  making  an  extra  expenditure  to  meet  a  dis- 
advantage. "Accept  no  substitute"  is  a  poor  campaign 
motto  unless  backed  up  with  sound  logic. 

When  a  merchant  plans  a  new  business  he  often  looks 
for  a  location  where  such  a  store  is  needed.  He  hunts 
for  an  "opening".  The  same  plan  has  no  superior  for 
widening  the  field  of  a  single  product.  Dozens  of  na- 
tional advertisers  are  developing  new  uses  for  their 
products  in  order  to  increase  demand,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  to  get  up  above  the  field  where  competition  is  hot. 
The  rifle  maker  exploits  the  vacation  target  gun;  the 
soap  maker  pictures  his  product  saving  hard  work  in 


24 


WHAT  FLAKES  MEN  BUY 


doaens  of  new  uses  about  the  house,  office  and  garage ; 
a  store  buyer  who  over-bought  on  a  single  line,  found  a 
new  use  which  made  further  stocks  necessary. 

In  a  city  where  a  dozen  banks  published  tedious 
statements  as  a  bid  for  business,,  one  institution  printed 
"this  advertisement  during  a  national  convention : 


Banking  Accommodations 
for  Convention  Visitors 

We  are  placing  the  facilities  of  this  bank 
at  your  special  disposal  during  the  conven- 
tion. 

For  any  banking  business  that  you  may 
have  to  transact  while  here,  you  are  cordial- 
ly invited  to  use  this  bank. 


If  you  want  to 
Change  Money 
Cash  Checks 
Deposit  Drafts  for 

Collection 
Buy  Traveler's 

Checks 


or,  if  you  would 
Learn  of  Business 

Conditions 
Get  the  Business 

Outlook 

Know  of  the  Pros- 
perity  of  Our 
People 


or  Transact  Any  Other  Business  Requiring 
Banking  Facilities,  Let  Us  Serve  You. 


This  advertisement  was  a  revelation  to  many  who 
"Were  permanently  in  that  bank's  prospect  group.  An  ac- 
cident had  lifted  the  advertising  man  out  of  the  rut  and 
had  shown  him  the  real  appeals  on  which  his  institution 
rested.  Several  of  these  appeals  were  inherent  in  the 
nature  of  banking;  to  this  extent  he  out-sold  hia  com- 
petitors. Others  of  these  uses — special  conveniences  and 
services  added  to  the  banking  functions — were  outside  or 
artificial  appeals  which  strengthened  the  pull  for  trade 
mmeh  as  the  free  premium  or  trading  stamp  strengthens 
a  store  appeal. 


SELLING  A  SINGLE  LINE  25 

There  is  a  danger  in  outside  appeal  that  it  may  over- 
shadow the  business  itself.  Yet  the  artificial  appeal 
often  gives  an  advertisement  just  the  clever  touch  it 
requires. 

Such  appeals  are  without  limit.  Sales  schemes  usually 
direct  the  extra  appeal  at  the  money  motive  in  pros- 
pects. A  fashionable  store  gave  special  fitting  service 
in  its  corset  department  and  thus  attracted  eager  trade 
at  $22.00  for  an  article  which  was  later  closed  out  at 
$2.00.  Fitting  service  gave  an  extra  appeal,  worth,  to 
the  buyer,  ten  times  the  price  of  the  article.  Any  one 
of  the  five  motive  headings  will  suggest  extra  appeals 
which  can  be  added  to  the  intrinsic  value  of  your  prod- 
uct and  will  lift  it  above  competition  in  some  clever 
and  timely  way.  Premium  and  discount  plans,  handy 
packages,  machine  repair  agreements,  complimentary 
insurance  policies,  the  hosiery  guarantee,  * '  railroad  fare 
to  buyers" — are  a  few  of  the  outside  appeals  which 
have  been  "read  into''  business  to  outdo  competition. 

If  you  are  a  local  advertiser  of  a  single  line,  service 
is  one  of  the  strongest  appeals  you  can  make.  Put  your 
place  above  competition  in  courtesy,  understanding  of 
your  prospects,  accuracy,  promise-keeping.  Let  your 
advertising  strongly  reflect  this  spirit. 

The  national  advertiser  of  a  single  line  is  far  from 
his  prospect  and  must  be  more  clever  in  finding  ton- 
tact — in  choosing  the  best  appeals  to  advertise. 

If  you  had  your  average  prospect  across  the  counter 
from  you,  and  he  twitted  you  upon  your  rival's  goods, 
you  would  know  what  points  to  talk.  If  he  protested 
that  his  ordinary  uses  were  supplied,  you  would  suggest 
new  uses  which  might  close  the  sale. 

Focus  your  advertising  on  these  points. 


CHAPTER  IV 


Making  Copy  Sell  Store  Products 

STORES,  mail  order  concerns  and  the  department 
shopping  center  all  depend  for  existence  upon  keep- 
ing up  with  the  public's  taste.  If  you  keep  store  you 
can  hardly  give  large  advertising  space  to  developing 
the  qualities,  new  uses  or  premium  inducements  of  one 
product.  Your  fortunes  are  linked  to  a  profit  percent- 
age to  be  drawn  from  dozens  or  hundreds  of  lines.  De- 
mand already  awaits  the  right  goods.  The  principal 
reason  for  featuring  any  article  is  to  make  a  leader  for 
drawing  custom  to  your  store. 

A  Massachusetts  grocer  and  market  man  tabulates  his 
sales  of  every  kind.  The  result  shows  growing  popu- 
larity for  some  articles  and  failing  market  for  others. 
This  illustrates  the  big  advantage  of  the  varied  product 
dealer.  He  is  free  to  add  or  discontinue  lines;  to  take 
on  seasonable  goods ;  to  watch  for  bargain  lots,  novelties 
or  leaders. 

This  condition  gives  the  storekeeper  the  tremendous 
advantage  over  the  single  product  man  of  building  his 
advertisements  upon  sales  schemes,  bargains,  timely 
offerings  and  service  covering  a  variety  of  stocks  closely 
articulated  with  the  needs  of  his  community. 

It  is  upon  this  policy  of  seasonable  advertising  that 


SELLING  MANY  PRODUCTS  27 

most  retailing  is  built.  The  business  is  steadied  by 
hundreds  of  small  items  that  contribute  to  profits.  Re- 
curring necessity  figures  as  the  central  buying  motive. 

Charting  the  Varied  Product  Advertisement  and  Find- 
ing the  Beat  Appeal  for  Every  Item 

"In  our  appeal  for  trade,"  said  the  advertising  man- 
ager of  a  first-rank  department  (store,  "we  exclude 
from  consideration  the  very  poor,  who  must  buy  by  price 
alone,  and  that  class  which  does  not  appreciate  the  dif- 
ference between  good  and  cheap  merchandise.  Thia 
leaves  us  the  great  middle  class  which  desires  quality 
and  will  pay  a  fair  but  not  exorbitant  price  for  it; 
and  that  small  but  high-profit  group  of  people  who 
cultivate  the  specialty  shop — who  judge  quality  by  price 
and  are  often  sold  through  the  flattery  of  sales  people." 

Another  department  store  features  in  its  head  line  the 
phrase : 

"Lowest  Prices  Our  Chief  Attractions." 

These  stores  have  defined  their  prospect  classes,  as 
the  correct  basis  of  store  policy.  To  fix  upon  your 
groups  of  prospects,  to  list  them,  locate  them,  find  the 
advertising  mediums  that  reach  them,  the  buying  ap- 
peals which  underlie  their  varied  purchases  and  the  best 
tone  of  copy  for  each  offering — this  is  the  advertising 
man's  task  as  he  prepares  to  offer  store  stocks  for  sale. 

Just  how  important  this  preliminary  analysis  is,  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  former  of  these  stores, 
having  a  high  class  of  trade,  prospects  with  leisure  to 
look  about,  and  a  high  grade  of  sales  people,  leaves  its 
advertising  man  merely  to  attract  prospects  to  the  coun- 
ter. The  second  store,  where  price  margins  are  close, 
individual  purchases  small,  shopping  time  limited  by 
daily  tasks  and  buying  ambitions  closely  restricted,  de- 


26  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

mands  that  the  advertisement  carry  the  chief  burden 
of  the  sale.  It  must  suggest  as  many  purchases  as 
possible,  make  plain  the  price  and  quality  arguments, 
awaken  the  impulse  to  buy  and  leave  the  low-paid  clerk 
to  do  little  more  than  send  up  the  package  for  wrap- 
ping. 

The  Advertising  Chart  has  an  important  place  here. 
By  it  a  book  publisher  cleverly  classifies  his  volumes  in 
such  a  way  that  different  groups  of  books,  as  advertised 
in  the  fiction  monthly,  the  farm  paper,  the  literary 
monthly,  the  news  weekly,  the  morning  paper,  the  re- 
ligious weekly,  the  woman's  journal  and  various  class 
and  trade  publications  respectively,  make  the  widest 
possible  appeal  to  those  who  are  prospects  for  each. 
The  store  advertiser  applies  the  same  principle,  but 
necessarily  must  divide  his  space  and  address  distinct 
sections  of  it  to  the  commuter,  housekeeper,  cook,  laun- 
dry operator,  office  man  and  to  the  buyers  of  various 
sorts  of  clothing. 

Having  chosen  a  few  representative  products  which 
seem  strongest  and  most  timely  in  appeal,  the  clever 
advertising  manager  will  refer  to  his  chart  and  for- 
mulate the  one  best  appeal  for  each  leader  or  class  of 
goods  to  be  featured.  For  the  novelty  he  will  use  im- 
pelling or  descriptive  copy,  according  as  his  prospects 
do  or  do  not  feel  a  need  for  the  new  product.  In  the 
same  way  he  will  advertise  ordinary  expense  commodi- 
ties, as  outlined  for  classes  "C"  and  "D".  Reaching, 
as  he  does,  varied  classes  of  prospects,  he  may  find 
that  a  combination  of  descriptive  and  reason-why  copy, 
or  descriptive  and  persuasive  copy,  will  pay.  One  man 
ia  regularly  buying  what  another  has  never  come  to 
need.  As  he  goes  on  to  analyze  motives,  he  will  find 
thai  ifche  money  motive  which  actuates   one  group   of 


SELLING  MANY  PRODUCTS  20 

prospects,  must  be  appealed  to  no  more  than  aome  mo- 
tive of  utility,  pride  or  self-indulgence,  which  reaches 
another  class. 

A  store  which  generally  makes  no  appeal  except  to 
display  the  goods  with  price  cards,  put  up  a  display 
of  glue  in  tubes  with  a  card  reminding4  the  householder 
of  the  "  screw  that  drops  out  of  the  door  knob,  the 
rung  that  falls  out  of  the  chair  and  the  handle  that 
has  separated  from  the  whisk  broom."  Sales  increased 
five  hundred  per  cent.  The  money  consideration  was 
too  small  to  cut  any  figure  and  the  descriptive  reminder 
of  handiness  was  decisive.  Thus  each  leader  in  your 
advertisement  can  be  charted,  just  as  the  one-prochict 
advertiser  would  analyze  his  single  offer. 

How  to   Choose   the   Strongest   Leaders   and   Feature 
Tlwm  in  Your  Store  Copy 

An  advertisement  offering  many  lines  for  «ale  may 
have  different  aims.  The  mail  order  circular  seeks  the 
greatest  possible  total  of  sales  and  of  inquiries  by  mail 
alone.  It  is  therefore  planned  to  cover  the  selling  de- 
tails with  accurate  pictures  and  descriptions.  The  clev- 
erest advertising  men  in  this  field  watch  the  inquiries 
and  work  over  their  advertisements  to  bring  out  more 
clearly  the  points  that  have  not  been  made  plain. 

A  retail  store  may  sell  by  mail,  but  does  most  of  its 
business  either  by  telephone  or  over  the  counter.  A 
clever  Southwestern  druggist  has  adapted  his  advertis- 
ing to  a  plan  of  sales  by  telephone  and  delivery  by 
motorcycle.  This  advertising  consists  chiefly  of  street 
car  cards,  and  circular  letters  addressed  to  the  physi- 
cians of  the  city.  In  neither  of  these  mediums  has  the 
druggist  tried  to  play  up  his  separate  offerings.  Rather, 
he  has  standardized  drug  store  stocks.     Every  ad^er- 


30  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

tisement  contains  the  assurance  to  doctors  or  consumers, 
that  at  the  nearest  of  his  stores  will  be  found  the  most 
complete  stock  of  drugs  and  accessories  in  the  city.  His 
circular  letters  strongly  back  up  this  claim  by  citing  to 
the  doctor  the  arrival  of  the  latest  scientific  prepara- 
tions and  remedies.  His  street  car  advertising  espe- 
cially features  quick  delivery  and  accurate  service.  Now 
and  then  some  unusual  bargain,  drawing  card  or  profit 
maker  gets  a  place  on  the  card.  Always,  however, 
telephone  numbers  of  the  stores  are  played  up  strongly. 
Clever  and  obliging  clerks  answer  the  telephone  calls 
and  are  given  the  salesman's  opportunity  to  play  up 
the  various  stocks  carried. 

Similarly,  the  advertising  and  circulars  of  up-to-date 
grocers  and  market  men  are  in  the  nature  of  news 
bulletins,  telling  of  timely  things,  of  canning  oppor- 
tunities, of  leaders  that  will  draw  the  telephone  call  to 
their  store,  instead  of  another. 

To  a  marked  degree  this  task  of  bringing  in  the  caller 
also  applies  to  the  department  and  general  store  adver- 
tisement. "Our  leaders  are  chosen,"  says  the  advertis- 
ing director  of  a  metropolitan  department  store;  "our 
descriptions  worded  and  our  illustrations  drawn  to  ex- 
cite interest  and  curiosity — to  make  prospective  buyers 
want  to  examine  the  lines  and  style  of  a  garment,  leav- 
ing each  prospect  curious  to  know  if  the  details  are 
such  as  she  wishes.  After  she  enters  the  store,  our 
salespeople  can  suit  her  taste  and  induce  her  to  buy. 

A  prominent  Brooklyn  store  prints  "a  condensed  ad- 
vertisement of  representative  bargains,"  with  twenty- 
five  different  headings,  under  each  of  which  are  given  a 
few  cleancut  leaders  that  will  draw  trade  into  the  store 
and  take  it  from  subway  to  top  floor.  In  this  way  is 
solved  the  problem  of  multiplicity  of  offerings,  so  differ- 


SELLING  MANY  PRODUCTS  31 

ent  from  that  of  the  automobile  or  soap  or  railway 
advertiser. 

A  famous  New  York  store  features'  and  prices  a  few 
leaders  merely  as  guarantee  or  ''sample"  offerings.  The 
leading  paragraph  under  many  subheads  plays  up  the 
tremendous  stock  of  "singles"  and  broken  lines  in  a 
way  that,  without  the  necessity  of  a  list,  has  a  strong 
appeal  to  curiosity  and  the  bargain  instinct.  Many  of 
the  descriptions  end  with  such  phrases  as: 

"Better  see  for  yourself  how  lovely  these  goods  are." 

"Numerous  other  attractive  styles  affording  good 
selection  in  all  sizes." 

The  general  store,  the  hardware  merchant,  the  furni- 
ture man  and  even  the  baker1  have  found  the  same  need 
of  suggesting  extensive  stocks  by  featuring  specialties 
suited  to  their  classes  of  trade.  When  the  cross-roads 
store  advertises  two  or  three  seasonable  offerings  it  is 
"putting  its  best  foot  foremost"  and  attracting  pros- 
pects whom  the  clerks  can  pilot  all  about  the  store. 

It  is  as  difficult  to  "think  up"  one's  casual  needs'  as 
to  decide  what  to  give  the  folks  for  Christmas.  Your 
store  or  bank  or  professional  "announcement"  puts  no 
definite  wish  into  the  prospect's  mind.  Buyers  do  not 
see  your  stock  every  hour  in  the  day.  Your  advertising 
must  either  paint  mental  pictures  of  your  goods  or  bring 
prospects  to  you. 

The  mail  order  catalogue — or  the  store  advertisement 
of  wished  for  offerings  and  the  resulting  visit  of  pros- 
pects to  your  store — is  definite — as  definite  as  the  "but- 
ter and  eggs"  quotation  that  hangs  in  your  window  or 
the  daily  display  of  fruit  and  vegetables  outside  your 
store.  These  are  the  advertisements  that  make  buyers 
and  build  business. 


CHAPTER  V 

Combining   Appeals   to   Win   the 
Average  Prospect 

TWO  partners  in  a  men's  clothing  business  were 
arguing  over  a  piece  of  "umbrella"  copy  ad- 
dressed strictly  to  men.  One  of  the  partners  claimed 
that  the  advertisement  should  also  appeal  to  women.  He 
insisted  that  women  had  often  come  into  the  store  to 
buy  men's  umbrellas. 

During  the  discussion  an  advertising  expert  happened 
into  the  store.  After  listening  for  a  moment,  he  pulled 
out  a  book  of  advertising  data  and  showed  the  store 
proprietors  that  on  the  judgment  of  haberdashers  in 
over  one  hundred  towns  considerably  more  than  sixty 
per  cent  of  the  umbrella  sales  were  to  women.  This  he 
followed  by  showing  that,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
merchants  who  had  gone  on  record,  about  forty  per 
cent  of  men's  underwear  and  hosiery,  55  per  cent  of 
their  handkerchiefs,  50  per  cent  of  bath  robes,  sweaters 
and  overalls,  and  20  per  cent  of  men's  shoes,  hats,  suits 
and  collars  are  generally  bought  for  them  by  the  ladies 
of  the  household.  In  the  wording  of  their  publicity, 
these  partners  had  been  neglecting  half  of  their  actual 
sphere  of  trade. 


COMBINING  APPEALS  33 

When  the  factory  manager  brings  a  project  before  his 
executive  board,  he  addresses  each  director  separately. 
He  meets  the  evident  prejudices  of  one;  he  strengthens 
the  apparent  hesitancy  of  another;  he  adapts  his  talk, 
paragraph   by   paragraph,    to   his  listeners. 

When  you  work  over  one  or  a  dozen  personal  letters 
to  combine  them  in  a  powerful  circular  letter  addressed 
to  all  your  prospects,  many  of  the  best  paragraphs  must 
be  cut  because  of  their  restricted  application.  As  you 
make  your  changes  and  widen  your  appeal,  the  letter 
gives  up  more  and  more  of  its  personal  tone — it  loses 
depth,  like  a  canyon-bound  river  emerging  into  a  plain. 

Prospects  for  your  product  are  opinionated  beyond 
any  executive  board — varied  beyond  any  mailing  list. 

The  vitality  of  your  advertisement  depends  upon  find- 
ing the  " greatest  common  factor"  of  character,  interest 
and  motive  among  your  prospects  or  prospect  groups. 
You  must  get  a  "composite  photograph "  of  your  pos- 
sible buyers  and  address  that  average  man.  You  must 
combine  the  strongest  possible  individual  interests  into 
the  average  appeal  of  greatest  fitness.  If  you  appeal 
only  to  a  few  of  those  you  should  reach,  you  advertise 
feebly  and  extravagantly.  If  you  attack  motives  or 
develop  uses,  offer  inducements  or  advertise  services  that 
do  not  reach  the  average,  then  your  advertising  is  only 
partially  efficient.  If  you  attempt  to  reach  all,  you 
may  interest  but  fail  to  persuade.  In  preparing  to 
advertise,  two  questions  of  tremendous  importance  are: 

1.  What  sort  of  person  is  my  average  prospect? 

2.  How  can  I  compose  my  strongest  appeal  to  him  ? 
Too  often  an  advertiser  who  believes  he  is  cultivating 

his  entire  prospect  acreage  is  merely  hacking  away  in 
the  fence  corner  while  competition  has  a  four-horse  culti- 
vator in  the  middle  of  the  field.    The  first  of  these  ques- 


34  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

tions  will  save  the  advertiser  from  overlooking  many  of 
his  best  prospects  and  perhaps  from  appealing  to  many 
who  are  not  prospects.  The  second  question  will  pre- 
vent him  from  overlooking  his  best  arguments  and  over- 
rating less  effective  ones. 

You  may  group  your  prospects  by  race,  by  wealth  or 
class,  by  age,  by  sex,  by  religion,  by  trades  and  profes- 
sions, by  tastes,  habits  and  living  conditions,  location, 
institutions  or  associations,  by  position  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  your  product — as  manufacturer,  jobber,  retailer 
and  consumer.  In  a  clever  campaign  to  sell  a  mending 
material,  picture  appeals  are  made  separately  to  the 
housewife,  the  plumber,  the  electrician,  the  automobile 
mechanic  and  the  tinner.  The  advertisement  which  plays 
up  the  cash  and  also  installment  prices  correctly  appeals 
to  two  classes  of  different  incomes  and  financial  habits. 
The  multi-product  factory,  the  furniture  store,  the 
book  publisher,  the  hardware  store  and  the  druggist  can 
make  the  same  principle  of  analysis  serve  them. 

How  to  Study  Your  Average  Prospect's   Wishes  and 
Buying  Power 

A  Northwestern  manufacturer  who  wished  to  intro- 
duce a  certain  annual  proposition  to  the  best  farmers 
of  three  states,  made  a  low  bulk  price  to  implement 
dealers  on  condition  that  they  distribute  to  the  perma- 
nent farmers  about  them  for  one  year  complimentary. 
The  mailing  lists  were  to  be  sent  to  the  manufacturer. 

After  three  years  the  plan  was  abandoned.  The  im- 
plement men  had  used  the  favor,  not  to  reach  the  best 
farmers,  but  to  placate  grumblers,  "  jolly"  bad  accounts 
and  introduce  themselves  to  one-year  renters.  The  man- 
ufacturer had  the  right  idea  as  to  classifying  his  trade, 
but  his  plan  brought  the  wrong  list. 


COMBINING  APPEALS  35 

In  putting  a  new  addressing  machine  on  the  market 
an  advertising  manager  studied  and  subdivided  his  pros- 
pect field  with  striking  success.  lie  consulted  Dun's 
and  Bradstreet  's,  sent  out  circular  letters,  appealed  to 
trade  publications;  and  through  perhaps  a  hundred 
channels  secured  authentic  lists  of  municipal  and  county 
officials,  bankers,  merchants,  manufacturers,  hardware 
men  and  scores  of  other  distinct  classes  of  prospects 
to  whom  he  could  make  strong  group  appeals  for  trade. 
Moreover,  he  went  into  the  details  of  each  business, 
studied  its  addressing  problems  and  possibilities. 

Such  analysis  of  your  prospect  group  is  just  a  ques- 
tion of  ingenuity.  Statistics  from  the  census  down  give 
facts  that  are  important  in  your  advertising.  The  sales- 
man's visit  to  a  typical  section,  a  test  campaign  on  a 
local  basis,  an  analysis  of  the  sales  records  and  cor- 
respondence, or  a  cleverly  devised  circular  letter  cam- 
paign in  typical  counties,  has  not  merely  set  wrong 
campaigns  right,  but  has  often  added  twenty  per  cent 
efficiency  to  a  successful  campaign. 

Having  located  your  prospect  groups  and  studied  the 
characteristics  of  every  important  class,  the  clever  adver- 
tising man  may  turn  to  his  chart  and  build  up  a  series 
of  advertising  tests  which  will  result  in  copy,  a  sales 
proposition  and  mediums  profitable  for  years. 

Giving    Your    Advertising    Campaign    the    Composite 
Appeal  That  Reaches  Various  Buying  Groups 

Those  appeals  which  are  to  reach  all  your  important 
prospects  may  be  combined  into  a  single  advertisement, 
or  distributed  throughout  a  campaign. 

A  telephone  company  gives  each  advertisement  a 
definite  aim,  covering  its  field  group  by  group.  One 
day  the  copy  reminds  the  business  man  of  telephone 


36  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

conveniences.  Again  it  reaches  the  sales  manager  with 
a  suggestion  of  the  selling  power  of  the  telephone.  It 
comes  to  the  executive,  urging  the  installation  of  a 
private  exchange.  It  follows  the  traveling  man  with 
a  reminder  that  one  rainy  day  a  salesman,  over  the 
long  distance  wires,  sold  a  train-load  of  matches.  It 
appeals  to  housewives  for  bad-weather  shopping,  it 
reaches  the  man  of  the  house  through  his  most  tender 
motives — its  utility  in  case  of  fire,  sickness,  burglary. 
It  makes  its  special  appeal  separately  even  to  the  apple 
grower,  the  wheat  rancher  and  the  cotton  farmer. 

The  power  of  such  directness  in  appeal  may  be  judged 
by  a  typical  advertisement  in  the  addressing  machine 
campaign,  mentioned  above.  A  nubbin  of  corn  and 
a  big  ear  are  shown.     The  copy  reads: 


There's   a  Difference 
You  Know  the  Reason ! 

Are  You  Telling  the  Farmer  How  it  is  Done? 

Our  addressing  machine  increases  your  sales  just  as 
commercial  fertilizer  increases  the  farmer's  crops.  It 
enables  you  to  prove  to  every  farmer,  fruit  grower  and 
truck  gardener  in  your  selling  territory  the  profits  that 
your  fertilizers  are  making  for  his  neighbors. 

Here  is  your  sales  method  —  Here  is  your  system 
already  proved  practical  and  profitable  for  you  by  28 
of  your  most  prominent  competitors. 


This  argument,  staggering  in  its  close  personal  ap- 
peal, was  varied  to  reach  every  important  group  of 
prospects  so  that  with  the  smallest  efficient  total  of 
copy  work,  an  appeal  was  made  which  swept  the  profit- 
able prospect  horizon. 

It  is  easy  to  aim  each  particular  piece  of  copy  at  a 
different  class,   but   there   is  a  danger  to  be  guarded 


COMBINING  APPEALS  37 

against — the  waste  circulation  involved.  Where  a  prime 
medium  covers  a  mixed  field,  the  several  appeals  must  be 
combined  in  a  single  advertisement.  Thus  the  hosiery 
maker,  the  shoe  manufacturer,  the  advertiser  of  break- 
fast foods  and  the  soap  manufacturer  picture  varied 
uses  for  their  products  under  one  headline. 

Your  office  or  store  depends  for  support  upon  the 
trade  of  various  classes.  To  make  your  appeal  wide,  yet 
not  shallow,  combine  in  it  the  strongest  selling  points 
you  would  talk  to  a  buyer  from  each  group. 

Making  Your  Advertising  Appeal    Universal  Among 
the  Prospects  for  Your  Goods 

A  manufacturer  of  automobile  oil  has  found  a  plan 
which  drives  a  direct  and  almost  personal  appeal  at 
practically  every  prospect  in  his  field.  He  has  repeated 
time  after  time  an  advertisement  urging  lubricants  espe- 
cially suited  to  each  variety  of  car.  The  advertisement 
carries  a  table  showing  by  each  type  of  car  and  each 
date  of  model,  the  best  of  his  five  grades  of  oil  for  sum- 
mer or  for  winter  use.  The  conviction  of  actual  service 
makes  a  strong  appeal  to  every  prospect  reached. 

A  still  more  clever  universal  appeal  is  embodied  in 
this  chart,  advertising  a  fireproof  document  safe: 


WHAT  TOUR  POU1CT  DOES  MOT  PROTECT 


]  i     ~L     i  i   -.1-   i  c 
]  I      ±      I  1   »...'—   I  c 


M aXe  secure  What  you  can't  insure. 

No  man  in  business  but  when  set  to  thinking  by  the 
fire-fighting  scene  which  "headlined"  the  copy,  will  find 
in  this  chart  something  vital  to  his  business  is  abso- 


38  WHAT  MAKES  MEN  BUY 

lutely  at  the  mercy  of  fire.  The  reminder  that  your 
insurance  policy  protects  none  of  these  things  is  a  uni- 
versal and  bull's-eye  appeal  to  every  man  who  might  buy. 
In  life  insurance  we  have  appeals  to  the  husband, 
to  the  wife,  to  the  old  folks,  to  the  children;  but  one 
advertising  man  has  found  an  appeal  which,  judged  by 
its  results,  was  well-nigh  universal.  About  the  folder 
are  photographs  of  the  baby  faces  that  have  first  con- 
sideration in  all  households.    The  appeal  reads: 


The  People  Have  Spoken.    Who  Shall  Dispute  Them? 

WE  ARE  THE  PEOPLE— We  are  here  and  society  is  going  to  be  better  or 
worse  for  our  coming.  We  had  no  option  in  the  matter,  we  were  not  consulted. 
The  first  thing  we  knew  was  when  we  opened  our  eyes  and  saw  the  big  world 
and  the  people.  And  then  somebody  said  goo,  and  we  said  goo,  and  that's 
the  way  we  got  started  to  thinking  and  talking. 

We  have  been  told  that  we  are  expected  to  grow  up  and  become  exemplary 
men  and  women,  like  our  parents.  That  in  the  coming  years  we  will  influence, 
for  better  or  worse,  those  with  whom  we  associate.  That  we  must  be  good,  ana 
that  we  must  also  be  strong  and  self-reliant,  lest  we  be  led  into  evil  ways  and 
consequent  unhappiness.  And  so,  at  our  last  meeting,  we  passed  by  a 
unanimous  vote  the  following  resolutions: 

"RESOLVED,  That  we  are  the  people.  That  we  are  the  hope  of  the  State 
and  its  only  guaranty  for  the  future,  and  that  we  must  be  educated  and  equip- 
ped for  the  work  before  us. 

"RESOLVED,  further,  That  the  uncertainties  of  life  render  it  advisable  that 
our  fathers  be  insured,  to  enable  our  mothers  to  qualify  us  for  our  mission,  in 
the  event  we  become  fatherless  while  we  are  yet  helpless. 

"RESOLVED,  further,  That  a  copy  of  these  resolutions  be  presented  as  early 
as  may  be,  to  our  parents,  with  the  earnest  request  that  they  give  attention 
thereto  and  take  action  thereon  without  delay." 


Mere  loud  talk  and  smart  phrase-making  will  not 
bring  high  average  returns  from  advertising  copy.  The 
universal  appeal  of  the  advertisement,  like  the  human 
interest  story  of  the  reporter,  is  big,  clean-cut  and 
simple.  It  gets  away  from  the  fanciful  and  the  un- 
natural, back  to  the  deepest  instincts  of  men  and  women. 


(ill 


nt 


Part  II 


NOVEL  WAYS  TO  REINFORCE 
YOUR  COPY 


Clinching  Sales  by  Special  Appeal 

ARE  your  sales  plan— your  copy— your  campaign,  a 
record  of  "near  successes"?  Does  your  straight  busi- 
ness offer  get  inquiries  but  not  orders?  Does  it  attract 
only  part  of  the  trade  you  ought  to  reach?  Does  it  tan- 
talize you  with  "almost  profits"?  The  right  sales  scheme 
will  solve  these  problems. 

A  department  store  jogged  along  for  seven  years,  barely 
keeping  its  haberdashery  section  alive  by  space  favors  in 
the  daily  newspaper  page.  Then  the  advertising  manager 
thought  of  a  sales  scheme — something  new,  interesting 
and  different  from  competition. 

The  plan  cleverly  emphasized  a  store  demonstration  of 
quality  in  men's  wear.  It  caught  the  public  fancy  and 
increased  haberdashery  sales  over  two  hundred  per  cent 
in  two  weeks. 

Somewhere  in  your  business  there  is  an  advantage  on 
which  you  can  base  a  new  advertising  appeal.  This  may 
take  the  form  of  a  clever  picture  or  phrase,  an  induced 
ment,  a  buying  convenience,  a  guarantee.  It  may  hinge 
on  the  ordinary  arguments  of  price  and  quality ;  or  it  may 
get  the  attention  of  new  prospect  groups,  limelight  new 
uses  for  your  goods,  sell  half  dozens  instead  of  singles  or 
win  the  confidence  of  a  suspicious  public. 

The  clever  advertiser  avoids  sales  schemes  that  occasion 
loss  or  eat  up  the  future.  The  best  sales  schemes  develop 
from  sales  needs,  and  it  is  by  a  close  study  of  your  copy, 
your  sales  plan  and  your  trade,  that  you  can  come  upon 
the  added  appeal  your  business  demands. 


■  II 


IIB 


in: 


nil 


WHERE  THE  SALES  SCHEME  FITS  IN 


SELLING  PROPOSITION 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR 
SALES  SCHEME 


BASIS  OF  SALES  SCHEME 


Product  with  Strong  Natural 
Selling  Appeal  Easily  Shown 
in  Copy,  as  Most  Specialties 


To  Get  Attention 


Curiosity  Appeals;  Plans  to 
Reach  Prospects  at  Special 
Time  or  in  Special  Groups 


Product  with  Strong  Selling 

Appeal  Not  Easily  Shown; 

as  Quality  or  Durability 


To  Emphasize  or 
Prove'  Main  Appeal 


Demonstration,  Proof, 

Sample,    Illustration , 

Guarantee 


Product  Whose  Natural 
Appeals  Alone  Have  Proved 
Insufficient  or  Are  Similar  to 
Those  of  Competing  Lines 


To  Add  Secondary 
Appeals 


Special  Service,  Premiums 
and  Inducements 


Product  Whose  Sales  Unit 
Has  Been  too  Small  to  Pay 
Profit         '     ■ 


To  Increase  Size  of  | 
Sales  Unit 


Guarantee,  Special  Price  or 
Premium,  Based  on  Purchase 
of  Larger  Quantity 


Where  Inferior  Competition 

Has  Made  Prospects 

Suspicious 


To  Prove  Your 
Claims 


Free  Trial;  Money  Back 

without  Discussion  to 

Dissatisfied  Buyers 


Where  no  Reason  Urges 
Immediate  Purchase  or 
Store  Visit 


To  Bring  in  Customers 

MoreOf  ten  ortoSecure 

a  Bigger  Percentage  of 

Orders  from 

Advertising 


Feature  Goods  and  Special 

Offerings,  Discounts, 

Premiums,  Terms  and 

Facilities  for  Buying 


To  Increase  Sales  of 
Seasonable  Goods 


To  Get  Attention  and 
Convince  by  Business 

Reasons  That 
Especially  Desirable 
Values A  re  Offered 


Seasonable,  Anniversary  and 

Holiday  Sales,  with  Specially 

Skilful  Purchasing  for  the 

Occasion 


Must  Sell  Goods  to  Bring  in 

Cash  to  Meet  Special 

Demands 


As  Above 


Quick  Income  Sales,  with 

Genuine  Financial  Reasons 

for  Reduced  Prices 


To  Reach  New  Groups 
of  Prospects 


A*  Above 


Get  Acquainted  Sales,  with 

Bargain  Prices  on  Special 

Purchases  Suited  to  New 

Groups  of  Propects  ?.- 


To  Sell  Jobbers'  or 
Manufacturers'  Bargain  Lot 


As  Above 


Special  Purchase  Sales  with 

Evidence  That  the  Lots 

Were  Bought  at  Reduction 


To  Clear  Away  Left  Overs  or 
Discontinued    Lines 


As  Above 


Clearance  Sales,  with 

Reductions  Based  on  Cost  of 

Storing  Goods  and 

Carrying  Them  over 


To  Convert  Slocks  Into 

Cash  on  Account  of  Some 

Business  Change 


As  Above 


Business  Change  Sales,  with 

Reductions  Based  on  Ne-? 

cessity  of  Quick  Conversion 

of  Goods  into  Cash 


This  chart  suggests  some  of  the  special  opportunities  and  uses  for  the  sales 

scheme  in  an  advertising  campaign.    There  are  hundreds  of  specific  sales 

which  fall  under  the  foregoing  heads 


hi; 


hi 


^^,  c  /V        . 

..■    ■ ' 

L_n__ 

v//^  -V   i 

^^i 

£       13U 

£v 

^5fel 

CHAPTER  VI 


Putting  Sales  Schemes  into  Copy 

CUSTOMERS  know  about  what  I  carry  in  my  store 
and  feel  that  they  can  buy  it  just  any  time.  I 
can't  get  them  interested  in  any  store  event  except  a 
heavy  reduction  in  price." 

This  complaint  indicates  a  disadvantage  sometimes 
felt  not  only  by  small  town  merchants,  but  by  every 
advertiser,  national  or  local.  The  remedy  for  it  is  a 
well-directed  sales  scheme.  Sales  schemes  are  not  meant 
to  impress  the  public  with  the  cleverness  of  your  ideas ; 
but  to  sell  goods — to  take  an  *  *  any-time-is-good-enough ' ' 
proposition  and  so  strengthen  its  main  selling  appeal, 
or  so  endow  it  with  unusual  attractions,  that  it  will  get 
more  and  quicker  action  from  the  buying  public. 

The  owner1  and  sales  manager  of  a  real  estate  concern 
in  a  Texas  city  were  closeted  in  their  private  office. 
They  had  just  purchased  a  twenty-acre  suburban  tract ; 
had  secured  an  extension  of  street  car  service  to  the 
ground  and  had  begun  development. 

"If  we  could  get  the  eager  attention  of  every  pros- 
pect in  this  city  and  hold  it  long  enough  to  tell  and 
demonstrate  what  we  offer,  I  could  sell  those  three  hun- 
dred and  forty- three  lots  in  two  days." 

41 


42  RE-ENFORCING  COPY 

The  owner  smiled  at  the  enthusiasm  of  his  sales  man- 
ager. 

" There  ought  to  be  a  scheme/ '  said  he,  "that  will  fire 
the  curiosity  and  get  the  attention  of  every  one  who 
can  read  our  advertising.     Let's  find  the  scheme.' ' 

The  sales  manager  went  away  with  the  word  "curi- 
osity" buzzing  in  his  brain.  "Nothing  excites  curi- 
osity, ' '  he  reasoned, ' '  like  a  secret — provided  no  one  pre- 
maturely lets  the  cat  out  of  the  bag/' 

"With  the  phrase  came  the  advertising  idea.  The  sales 
scheme  as  finally  used  was:  To  push  the  development 
work  rapidly  but  quietly  and  to  get  everything  ready 
so  that  when  the  pistol  flashed,  the  buyers  could  pull  a 
numbered  tag  from  a  stake  on  any  lot  desired  and  pay 
down  their  earnest  money  in  a  booth  on  the  tract.  The 
preparation  was  to  be  made  as  secretly  as  possible.  There 
would  be  no  preliminary  advertisement  except — 

The  single  exception  to  the  rule  of  no  publicity  was 
an  advertisement  which  ran  in  preferred  position  from 
August  first,  nearly  until  the  sale  opened  on  Labor  Day. 
This  advertisement  was  merely  a  picture  of  a  cat 
struggling  to  get  out  of  a  bag.  Day  by  day  it  clawed 
its  way  nearer  to  the  top,  until  a  few  days  before  the 
sale  the  cat  was  out  of  the  bag  with  double  page  spreads 
in  all  the  local  papers,  announcing  the  sale. 

On  the  same  date  plats,  circular  matter,  instructions 
for  getting  to  the  new  tract  and  tickets  for  the  first 
trips  on  the  new  street  car  line  were  carefully  issued 
to  all  the  worth-while  prospects  who  had  for  days  been 
wondering  about  the  strange  advertisement  in  the  local 
papers. 

The  success  of  the  sales  scheme  staggered  those  who 
had  planned  it.  Sunday  evening  people  began  to  camp 
on  choice  lots;  upon  a  signal  given  at  midnight,  people 


SCHEMES  THAT  PULL  43 

came  filing  in  with  tags,  and  at  twelve  forty  a.  m.  am 
announcement  was  sent  to  the  morning  papers  that  more 
than  half  the  lots  had  been  sold,  earnest  money  received 
and  cash  balanced.  By  eleven  o'clock  the  next  morning 
the  tract  was  sold  out. 

How  the  Clever  Scheme  Rounds  Out  the  Appeal  and 
Completes  the  Sales  Plan 

The  sales  scheme  may  fill  one  or  more  of  some  twenty 
functions.  The  real  estate  manager  was  sure  that  the 
force  of  his  offer  would  close  sales  provided  he  could  get 
attention.  He  felt  sure  that  interest,  confidence,  con- 
viction and  the  decision  to  buy  would  follow.  The  sales 
scheme,  therefore,  was  solely  attention-getting.  But 
there  are  sales  schemes,  such  as  the  cleverly  advertised 
demonstration  or  the  premium,  which  re-enforce  the 
reasons  for  choosing  one  brand  instead  of  another;  sales 
schemes  that  emphasize  in  your  copy  the  disadvantage 
the  prospect  should  feel  in  doing  without  a  Class  "A" 
product ;  sales  schemes  to  re-enforce  description  and  sug- 
gestion ;  to  touch  a  particular  motive ;  to  emphasize  your 
proof,  your  guarantee  and  the ^ ease  of  buying  today. 

A  mail  order  house  was  seeking  to  establish  a  market 
for  cream  separators  in  a  district  where  a  disreputable 
rival  machine  had  cut  confidence  to  pieces.  At  the 
mention  of  cream  separators  the  farmers  grew  wrathy 
over  their  past  experiences  and  demanded  absolute  proof, 
such  as  the  distant  house  found  difficult  to  give. 

"But  our  separator  is  right,' '  said  the  owner  to  his 
advertising  manager.  "I  haven't  been  making  machines 
for  ten  years  and  ^  putting  thousands  into  the  business, 
to  get  nowhere.  I'd  let  any  farmer  try  out  the  machine 
for  sixty  days  and  guarantee  it  to  beat  the  field," 

"Tell  them  so,"  said  the  advertising  manager. 


44  RE-ENFORCING  COPY 

"Tell  them  what?" 

"Tell  them  that  you  will  ship  the  machine  on  sixty 
days'  free  trial.  Don't  expect  your  prospects  to  show 
more  faith  in  your  machine  than  you  do.  Prove  that 
you  have  absolute  faith  in  it." 

The  new  advertising  played  up  the  most  absolute  guar- 
antee as  follows: 

"We  will  gladly  ship  you  any*  size  of  our  separator 
with  the  understanding  that  you  set  it  up  and  try  it  on 
your  farm  for  sixty  days.  Give  it  the  hardest  kind  of 
a  test;  compare  it  in  actual  operation  with  any  other; 
"keep  a  record  of  the  amount  of  cream  you  get  from 
each;  compare  ease  of  running,  time  consumed  in  clean- 
ing— make  any  other  comparisons  you  can  think  of. 

"If  any  other  machine,  selling  for  twice  as  much,  will 
do  better  work,  our  advice  to  you  is:  'Buy  the  other 
machine  and  send  ours  back.'  If,  at  the  end  of  sixty 
days,  you  are  not  satisfied  with  our  separator,  you 
needn't  even  tell  us  the  reason  unless  you  wish  to; 
just  return  it  to  us  "by  freight.  "We  will  at  once  send 
back  all  money  paid  us,  and  in  addition  will  pay  all 
freight  both  ways — and  allow  you  a  reasonable  amount 
for  your  time  in  repacking  it  and  hauling  it  back  to 
the  station." 

That  the  scheme  struck  home  was  at  once  evident, 
for  sales  on  the  money-back  guarantee  trebled. 

The  same  plan  increased  sales  fifty  fold  for  a  con- 
cern which  put  an  -t  unreserved  guarantee  back  of  its 
men's  hosiery.  This  scheme  also  had  another  clever 
twist.  The  guarantee  was  given  not  on  a  single  pair; 
but  on  each  pair  in ;  a  box  of  six,  thus  increasing  largely 
the  average  individual  purchase. 

If  your  advertising  is  getting  results,  but  at  almost 
prohibitive    cost,   it   may   possibly  the   redeemed  by   a 


SCHEMES  THAT  PULL  45 

scheme  which  increases  the  unit  sold.     Study  to  find 
some  copy  appeal  that  will  sell  a  larger  order. 

Store  Schemes  Which  Put  Some  New  or   Vital  Ap- 
peal into  the  Advertising 

The  store  sales  scheme  is  generally  needed  to  clear  out 
slow-moving  stock,  to  introduce  new  trade  to  the  store, 
to  establish  the  reputation  of  the  store;  or  to  increase 
the  total  sales  without  clearance  tactics. 

Your  purpose  in  a  special  sale  is  not  to  sell  at  a  loss ; 
not  to  stir  up  and  anger  competing  shops;  it  is  to  sell 
goods  at  a  proper  profit  and  with  proper  regard  for 
future  trade. 

The  buying  public  knows  this  as  well  as  you  do.  The 
"our-loss-is-your-gain"  idea  is  an  appeal  that  requires 
absolute  proof.  In  general,  the  public  simply  does  not 
believe  it.  Moreover,  what  it  wishes  to  hear  is  not  that 
you  are  losing  money;  hut  tJiat  you  are  offering  de- 
sirable goods  at  attractive  prices.  This,  therefore,  is  the 
proper  keynote  of  every  special  sale.  Clearing  sales, 
inventory  sales,  get-acquainted  sales,  by-special-request 
sales  and  the  year's  calendar  of  anniversary  sales,  with 
hundreds  of  clever  twists  and  variations  adapted  to  in- 
dividual conditions,  seasons,  attractions  and  buying 
prejudices,  are  proved  sales  schemes,  the  essential  point 
being  for  your  copy  to  convince  the  public  that  the  cen- 
tral offer  or  reason  is  genuine. 

A  Southwestern  store  was  rebuilding  on  its  orig- 
inal site  and  at  the  same  time  dismantling  the  old  struc- 
ture. Large  stocks  had  to  be  moved  or  disposed  of. 
Carpenters  at  work  taking  out  the  store  front,  hoisting 
engines  in  noisy  operation  and  elevator  service  dis- 
mantled were  indubitable  proofs  that  it  was  good  busi- 
ness for  the  merchant  to  make  the  bargains  genuine. 


46  RE-ENFORCING  COPY 

Proofs  of  rebuilding  were  cleverly  woven  into  the  ad- 
vertising copy.  Sketches  in  the  newspaper  copy  showed 
carpenters,  masons  and  plumbers  at  work.  The  copy 
itself  used  language  technical  to  these  trades.  Tiny 
souvenirs  consisting  of  a  hammer,  saw  or  trowel  attached 
to  a  Rebuilding  Sale  tag,  were  distributed  and  worn 
by  hundreds  of  people.     One  of  the  form  letters  read : 

"You  have  heard  of,  and  are  interested  in  our  Re- 
building Sale  because  of  what  it  will  mean  to  you  per- 
sonally, and  as  our  customer.  Active  rebuilding  begins 
next  week,  and  to  celebrate  the  occasion  we  are  going 
to  hold  a  great  Rebuilding  Sale,  opening  April  eighth. 

tlOn  this  date  the  contractors  will  take  charge.  Many 
departments  will  have  to  be  moved  on  five  minutes' 
notice.  With  our  great  stocks  of  new  spring  and  sum- 
mer merchandise,  and  unable  to  secure  another  suitable 
building,  we  are  helpless — but  one  alternative  remains — 
TO  SELL  THE  MERCHANDISE  AT  PRICES  TO 
INSURE  QUICK  MOVEMENT.  Tempting  prices  and 
reductions  will  prevail  in  every  department  and  money 
saving  will  be  here  a-plenty." 

The  general  public,  convinced,  of  the  truth  of  the 
store's  statements,  came  from  miles  around  and  the  in- 
crease in  business  ran  more  than  twenty-five  per  cent 
over  the  previous  April. 

Advertising  to  Direct  the  Sale  Scheme  at  Store  Needs, 
Opportunities  and  Handicaps 

A  sales  scheme  may  not  only  touch  new  motives  for 
purchase  and  emphasize  new  uses  for  a  product;  but  it 
may  also  establish  the  reputation  of  an  advertiser  and 
introduce  him  to  new  groups  of  desirable  prospects. 

A  new  advertising  manager  had  taken  charge  of  an 
Indiana  store.     He  found  that  a  majority  of  the  stock 


SCHEMES  THAT  PULL  47 

was  nationally  advertised  goods,  yet  the  untidy  appear- 
ance of  the  store  and  its  out-of-date  ways  had  lost  it 
prestige. 

The  new  advertising  manager  fixed  upon  seventeen 
lines  as  the  basis  of  an  appeal  for  high  class  trade,  and 
a  guarantee  of  the  quality  idea  for  which  the  store 
stood.  From  each  of  the  seventeen  manufacturers  he 
secured  an  electrotype  of  an  attractive  advertisement, 
standard  magazine  page  size.  He  next  arranged  a  win- 
dow display  of  the  seventeen  products.  This  he  photo- 
graphed and  reproduced  as  the  cover  of  a  thirty-two 
page  booklet  under  the  title,  "Did  you  see  it  in  the 
magazines f  If  you  did,  we  have  it."  The  booklet  re- 
produced the  seventeen  advertisements ;  showed  that  this 
advertising  in  the  best  magazines  was  a  guarantee  of 
high  quality,  and  satisfaction  or  money  back.  It  went 
on  to  link  the  best  of  nationally  advertised  goods  with 
the  best  magazines,  the  best  homes  and  the  best  store. 

The  appeal  not  merely  re-established  the  position  of 
the  store,  but  made  it  convenient  for  the  housewives  of 
the  town  to  get  exactly  the  standard  goodsi  they  wished, 
without  telephoning  more  than  the  one  dealer. 

Preliminary  to  choosing  or  devising  a  sales  scheme 
know  the  strength  of  your  main  appeals  and  find  what 
secondary  appeals  are  necessary;  determine  the  char- 
acter of  the  scheme  you  need — whether  to  compare  the 
advantage  of  your  goods  with  the  disadvantage  of  other 
products  or  none;  whether  to  emphasize  an  intricate 
point  in  the  construction  of  your  product,  to  reach  the 
motive  of  money-gain,  or  pride  or  caution;  whether  to 
get  attention,  develop  interest  or  get  quick  action. 
Choose  your  scheme  accordingly  and  give  it  emphasis 
throughout  the  copy. 


CHAPTER  VII 
How  to  Use  Pictures  and  Samples 

PRINTED  pages  give  up  their  message  slowly ;  words 
speak  inaccurately.  Picture  writing  not  only  was 
the  first  advertising  copy,  but  is  still  easiest,  quickest  and 
most  attractive  to  read.  Stronger  yet  in  advertising 
appeal  is  the  actual  sample,  carrying  proof  and  convic- 
tion of  the  various  properties  of  the  goods. 

The  mere  attention-getting  picture,  however,  is  too 
commonly  used  where  the  illustration  might  easily  tell 
something  definite  and  attractive  about  your  product. 

A  man  whose  ability  to  judge  advertising  copy  com- 
mands a  salary  of  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year  says: 

"  Approach  the  picture  question  by  the  common  sense 
road.  Know  first  what  the  picture  can  do  for  your  ad- 
vertisement Figure  the  cost  of  the  space  it  requires. 
Then,  ask  yourself ;  *  Is  the  work  this  picture  does  worth 
the  price  I  must  pay  for  it?'  Your  advertisement  is 
your  salesman ;  the  picture  that  goes  into  it  should  help 
do  the  work  of  a  salesman.  Do  you  hire  a  salesman  solely 
because  he  has  a  good  appearance  ?  Because  he  has  man- 
ners that  will  favorably  impress  your  trade?  Because 
he  knows  how  to  pick  out  the  strong  points  of  your  goods 
and  to  bring  their  main  selling  appeals  to  the  attention 
of  prospective  customers  with  the  skill  that  sells?   You 

48 


PICTURES  AND  SAMPLES  49 

hire  him  because  he  combines  all  three  qualifications,  but 
you  can  afford  to  pay  him  an  unusual  salary  chiefly 
because  of  the  third — because  he  presents  the  strong 
points  of  your  goods  with  the  skill  that  sells. 

''The  picture  is  like  the  salesman:  its  chief  money 
value  to  you  is  in  its  selling  force.  Space  is  costly. 
Make  your  picture  earn  its  space.  Demand  of  it  that 
it  make  more  clear,  more  vivid,  more  convincing  the  main 
selling  appeals  of  your  copy." 

Finding  the   Illustration   that   Strengthens    Your  Sel- 
ling Points  and  Fits  Your  Advertising  Campaign 

Sometimes  an  illustration  which  has  pulled  well  loses 
its  force.  Change  in  marketing  conditions  requires  em- 
phasis on  some  other  appeal. 

A  motorcycle  manufacturer,  who  through  costly  ex- 
perience has  developed  the  use  of  the  picture,  said: 

"We  were  pioneers  in  the  motorcycle  field,  making  the 
machines  when  they  were  still  a  curiosity.  Our  first 
pieces  of  copy,  which  pulled  well,  represented  a  pleasant 
country  scene  with  some  such  headline  as:  'Such  spots 
as  this  are  within  your  easy  reach  by  motorcycle  \ 

' '  A  short  time  ago,  however,  improved  factory  methods 
enabled  us  to  offer  a  superior  machine  at  a  lower  price. 
Motorcycles  were  by  this  time  well  advertised,  and  we 
expected  to  skim  the  cream  of  the  next  season's  business 
before  our  competitors  woke  up.  "What  we  considered 
strong  copy  was  prepared  on  the  appeal,  'A  better  ma- 
chine at  a  lower  price'.  The  same  series  of  country 
scenes  were  used  as  illustrations.  Instead  of  immediate 
increased  sales,  we  were  swamped  with  letters  demand- 
ing reassurance  that  we  had  not  sacrificed  quality. 

"I  consulted  an  advertising  expert.    His  advice  was: 

"  'The  idea  behind  your  copy  is  right,  but  the  copy 


50  RE-ENFORCING  COPY 

does  not  play  up  your  bargain  appeal  convincingly. 
Throw  away  your  pretty  picture — it  takes  up  half  your 
page  and  tells  a  story  which  is  now  familiar  to  all  of  us. 
Replace  it  with  a  cut  of  your  motorcycle.  Lime-light  the 
features  that  make  it  a  superior  machine.  Your  copy 
talks  about  easy  riding  qualities — let  your  cut  make  this 
convincing  and  show  why.  Constantly  refer  the  reader 
back  to  the  cut  for  proof  of  your  claims. '  " 

The  advice  was  followed.  It  is  history  that  this  manu- 
facturer did  skim  the  cream  of  that  season's  business 
before  his  competitors  woke  up — did  so  by  reclassifying 
the  picture  needs  of  his  copy  and  changing  his  illustra- 
tion from  inspirational  to  descriptive  to  meet  an  existing 
demand  opened  up  by  reducing  his  price  within  reach 
of  many  eager  prospects. 

"Whatever  the  special  appeal  of  your  copy — whether 
particular  features  or  qualities,  new  uses,  premiums  and 
inducements,  services  or  the  disadvantage  which  lack  of 
your  product  entails,  lime-light  this  point  as  strongly  as 
possible  in  your  illustration. 

An  Indiana  manufacturer  of  electric  motors  effectively 
used  two  pictures  in  the  same  advertisement  to  market 
a  class  "A"  product.  The  first  picture  showed  two  men 
struggling  to  crank  the  fly-wheel  of  a  big  gasoline  engine ; 
the  other,  a  man  starting  an  electric  motor  of  equal 
power  by  throwing  a  switch  with  two  fingers. 

Thus  a  picture,  or  a  chain  of  pictures,  serves  as  a 
headline,  challenging  the  reader  to  consider  disadvan- 
tages due  to  hard  work,  wasted  time,  chances  of  accident 
and  the  many  appeals  which  spring  to  the  mind  at  the 
flash  of  a  clever  sketch. 

Illustration  gives  the  reader's  imagination  full  play 
among  all  possible  appeals  your  goods  possess  for  him. 

Every  advertiser  has  some  virgin  prospect  field — or 


PICTURES  AND  SAMPLES  51 

perhaps  some  new  use  for  his  product  which  has  not  yet 
occurred  to  buyers,  and  which  means  a  tremendous  extra 
demand.  A  department  store  dealer  in  a  town  of  ten 
thousand,  pictured  in  his  advertising  a  new  use  which 
saved  him  a  heavy  loss  on  a  certain  product. 

"Not  long  ago,"  said  he,  "we  had  a  run  on  a  novel 
clothes  sprinkler.  The  article  had  merit  without  com- 
petition. Just  when  we  had  sold  more  than  three  thou- 
sand of  the  sprinklers,  however,  our  buyer  grew  over- 
enthusiastic,  and,  at  a  special  discount,  took  thirty-six 
hundred  more.  Naturally,  we  had  practically  stocked  up 
the  town  and  surrounding  trade  territory.  Demand 
soon  fell  off,  and  it  looked  as  if  we  might  have  to  hold 
the  sprinklers  until  the  other  stock  of  them  wore  out. 

"One  morning  on  my  way  down  town,  however,  I 
happened  to  see  a  woman  using  one  of  the  sprinklers  to 
water  the  flowers  in  her  front  window.  The  picture 
flashed  to  my  mind  the  answer  to  the  problem — the  new 
use  that  would  make  prospects  in  many  families  where 
the  laundry  work  is  sent  out.  At  once  we  headed  our 
newspaper  copy  with  a  sketch  of  a  lady  using  our 
sprinkler  upon  her  house  plants.  Instantly  the  adver- 
tising caught  and  soon  cleared  our  shelves.' ' 

If  you  have  so  thoroughly  worked  a  given  class  that 
you  have  supplied  their  profitable  demand,  study  your 
product  for  new  uses  to  which  it  may  be  put.  Choose 
the  best  of  these,  and  spot-light  the  new  use  by  illustra- 
tion; your  advertising  will  speed  a  new  message  that  will 
reach  prospects  never  reached  by  the  old  appeal. 

Proof  is  the   Unique  Advantage   Gained   by   the    Use 
of  Camera  Made  Copy 

Photographs  of  articles  whose  main  selling  appeal  can 
be  caught  by  camera,  are  strong  in  convincing  power. 


52  RE-INFORCING  COPY 

The  average  person  instantly  feels  that  the  camera  elimi- 
nates exaggeration  and  honestly  reproduces  whatever  de- 
fects may  exist.  Wash  drawings  and  made  up  pictures 
on  the  other  hand  are  weak  in  confidence-getting  power. 

A  department  store  manager  who  was  well-known  to 
his  trade  in  a  town  of  twenty-five  thousand,  had  himself 
photographed  in  an  overcoat  that  he  believed  was  not 
selling  as  fast  as  its  merits  deserved.  This  photograph 
was  reproduced  in  a  special  advertisement  and  resulted 
in  a  run  on  the  style  of  coat  displayed.  When  the  actual 
photograph  was  shown  to  prospects,  the  effect  was  to 
lend  the  coat  a  tone  of  distinction  and  exclusiveness. 

The  realism  of  camera  copy  carries  conviction  for 
whatever  selling  points  it  displays.  Skilful  camera 
work  and  re-touching  will  usually  bring  out  the  strong 
features  on  which  your  advertisement  hinges. 

'  *  We, ' '  said  the  advertising  manager  of  a  highly  suc- 
cessful department  store,  "use  illustrations  of  our  most 
timely  goods — our  ' leaders' — because: 

"1.  The  element  of  timeliness  in  pictures,  itself  has 
high  attention-getting  value. 

"2.  The  illustration  tells  its  message  with  the  speed 
that  the  hurried  newspaper  reader  appreciates. 

"Where  style  is  all  important,  as  in  certain  gowns, 
the  sketch  simply  outlines  the  cut  and  general  appear- 
ance. It  does  not  pin  a  woman  down  to  one  specific, 
and  perhaps,  unfavorable  conception  of  the  gown  shown, 
but  leaves  her  free  to  read  in  whatever  details  please 
her  most.  Accompanying  the  picture  is  copy  describing 
many  gowns.  This  further  helps  her  pleasingly  to  fill 
out  her  mental  picture.  The  whole  effect  of  the  adver- 
tisement is  to  impress  upon  her  that  we  have  the  gown 
she  wants  at  her  price.  This  impression  strongly  at- 
tracts her  to  our  store,  which  is  my  chief  task. 


PICTURES  AND  SAMPLES  53 

"If  the  article  advertised  is  a  trunk,  the  appeals  of 
strength  and  durability  are  important.  The  metal 
covered  corners,  the  reinforced  sides  and  the  heavy 
straps  must  stand  out  boldly  in  the  cut.  Whatever 
special  qualities,  advantages  or  uses  persuaded  the  buy- 
ing department  to  take  on  the  line,  are,  if  possible, 
made  to  speak  directly  from  the  illustration. ' ' 

Where  Samples  and    Illustrations  in   Actual   Colors 
Pay  Best  in  Advertising 

Nothing  drives  home  the  appeal  of  attractive  goods  of 
certain  sorts  so  surely  as  an  actual  sample,  with  the 
guarantee  that  it  is  genuine.  In  many  lines,  however, 
the  cost  of  sampling  is  prohibitive,  and  the  store  invi- 
tation or  offer  to  ship  for  inspection  on  approval  must 
take  the  place  of  the  free  specimen. 

A  certain  mail  order  concern  is  convinced  that  it  pays 
to  advertise  free  samples  of  cotton  dress  goods  and  other 
low  priced  lines  where  color  and  material  are  strong 
selling  factors.  With  every  sample  goes  a  piece  of  ad- 
vertising which  points  out  the  specific  merits  represented 
in  the  sample.  The  sample  also  has  another  value  in 
that  it  facilitates  ordering  a  certain  color  or  texture 
which  the  written  description  might  not  make  plain. 

The  expense  of  samples  has  led  to  various  tests  of 
colored  illustrations  as  a  substitute.  A  mail  order  ad- 
vertiser who  has  spent  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dol- 
lars in  recent  years  in  color  work,  says: 

Since  we  began  to  show  shoes  in  their  natural  colors, 
our  sales  have  increased  seventy-five  per  cent.  Colored 
illustrations  of  cotton  dress  goods  have  apparently  re- 
duced by  eighty  per  cent  the  number  of  requests  for 
samples.  Simultaneously  with  the  first  large  use  of 
colors,  however,  were  other  changes  in  the  copy  which 


54  RE-ENFORCING  COPY 

make  it  impossible  for  me  to  gauge  exactly  the  values  of 
colors  and  samples." 

Wherever  color  in  the  product  has  selling  appeal, 
samples  and  color  work  should  increase  the  returns. 
Only  by  exact  tests,  however,  can  comparison  be  made 
of  the  greater  returns  and  higher  costs. 

A  furniture  dealer  in  a  Massachusetts  coast  town  dis- 
covered that  a  neighboring  "summer  colony* '  bought 
rugs  liberally  from  Boston.  He  put  in  a  high-grade  line 
especially  to  interest  them.  He  featured  his  rugs  in  the 
local  newspaper ;  he  bombarded  his  prospects  with  well- 
written  letters  and  circulars.  But  they  failed  to  respond. 
One  day,  however,  he  recalled  that  he  hadi  not  granted 
an  interview  to  the  rug  salesman,  nor  felt  any  interest 
in  the  line  until  after  receiving,  from  the  rug  jobber  a 
colored  reproduction  of  a  very  beautiful  number,  which 
made  him  eager  to  see  the  original. 

At  once  the  merchant  wrote  to  the  rug  importer,  and, 
at  a  nominal  cost,  secured  a  hundred  color  plates  each, 
of  the  four  most  beautiful  patterns.  He  mailed  them 
to  a  selected  list  of  prospects,  together  with  an  engraved 
invitation  to  call  at  the  display  room,  and  inspect  the 
originals.  The  rug-lovers  in  the  summer  colony  were 
quick  to  respond,  and  this  merchant's  display  room  be- 
came widely  known  for  its  exclusive  patterns. 

Illustrations,  colored  or  otherwise,  and  samples,  are 
merely  single  factors  which,  together  with  headline,  va- 
rious paragraphs  of  reading  matter  and  the  coupon, 
make  up  the  united  selling  appeal  of  an  advertisement. 
The  strongest  effect  comes  when  all  of  these  factors  are 
linked  together — co-operating  in  emphasis  upon  the 
most  important  selling  points. 


Ill 


III 


Part  III 


HOW  TO  WRITE  THE  ADVERTISE 
MENT  AND  MAKE  THE  LAYOUT 


Get  Greater  Pulling  Power 

ADVERTISING  comes  to  persuade  the  reader  to  buy, 
but  finds  him  bound  by  manifold  reasons,  inclina- 
tions and  distractions  unfavorable  to  its  object. 

If  your  copy  and  layout  are  to  be  successful  in  getting  at- 
tention, in  playing  up  interest,  in  carrying  the  logic  of  the 
purchase,  getting  the  confidence  of  the  prospect  and  clos- 
ing the  sale,  then  everyone  of  these  opposing  impulses  in 
the  buyer  must  be  torn  down  or  overmatched. 

Good  copy  is  an  unseen  cord;  if  you  can  wind  about  the 
buyer  enough  strands  of  positive  appeal — if  you  can  bind 
him  with  buying  influences  stronger  than  any  opposing 
forces,  you  will  pull  him  away  from  his  aloofness  and 
bring  him  in  willing  submission  to  your  appeal. 

With  your  headline  you  throw  about  him  the  first  slender 
loop  of  your  influence — a  hold  that  will  endure  but  an  in- 
stant. Quickly  now  you  must  follow  this  with  every  ap- 
peal that  adds  strength  to  your  grip.  Against  inatten- 
tion, lack  of  desire,  ignorance  habit,  economy,  you  must 
rapidly  match  stronger  strands  of  positive  selling  force. 

The  advertising  expert,  therefore,  welcomes  the  knowl- 
edge of  every  disadvantage  in  his  proposition  and  every  un- 
favorable attitude  in  his  trade.  Just  in  proportion  as  he 
can  foresee  all  such  forces,  can  he  match  them,  strand  for 
strand,  and  make  sure  that  the  balance  of  pulling  power 
in  his  advertisement  is  on  the  right  side. 


■  II 


IIB 


in: 


HOW  THE  HEADLINE 
ATTRACTS  READERS 


IBS 

=3 


ED 


Headline  Because  Prominent  "in  a  Pro- 
perly Displayed  Advertisement,  Gets  Physical 
Attention  and  Instantly  Conveys  Its  Idea 


2A 


If  This  Idea 

FAILS  TO  INTEREST  Reader, 

He  Will  Give  Attention  either 


If  This  Idea 

INTERESTS  Reader, 

He  Will 


m 


To  Another 
Page  or  Subject 


To       LIB 

Something  Else 
in  Advertise- 
ment. 


Read  Further  with 
ANTICIPATION  That  Copy  Will 
Illuminate  Headline  Idea. 


m 


Back  to  I 


If  Anticipation  Is  Not 
Realized  in  Copy 


If  Anticipation  Is 
Realized  in  Copy 


m 


Advertisement  Conveys 
to  Reader  Another  Idea. 


\5\ 


Reader  Will  Read  Your       Li- 
Advertisement  and  Purpose  of 
Headline  Is  Accomplished. 


I     Back  to  1 

I ~ >. 


The  well-chosen  headline  takes  the  reader  into  your  advertisement  by  the 

straight  rcute  (steps  1  to  5).  Less  significant  headings  involve  round-about 

ways  with  a  chance  at  every  step  that  the  attention  will  be  lost 


All 


III 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Attention -getting  Headlines  and 
Displays 

WHY  use  headlines?  Why  put  extra  thought  and 
time  into  the  arrangement  of  an  advertisement 
whose  sales  talk  is  strong? 

First  of  all,  to  make  the  reader  stop — to  get  atten- 
tion. 

The  surest  way  to  flag  the  reader  is  to  give  your  head- 
line and  display  mechanical  prominence  over  everything 
else  on  the  page  or  in  the  medium.  To  give  it  a  unique 
quality  of  any  sort  has  a  certain  attention-getting 
power.  The  illustration  of  something  which  the  reader 
wants  will  stop  him  with  the  instantaneous!  action  that 
belongs  peculiarly  to  "picture  writing.' '  There  is  a 
certain  shock  and  challenge  about  a  headline  worded  as 
a  question  or  a  command,  which  has  special  value  in 
halting  the  reader  and  giving  your  copy  a  chance  to  tell 
its  story. 

To  make  the  headline  stand  out  well  mechanically, 
have  it  set  in  type  much  larger  than  any  other  in  the 
advertisement,  and,  if  possible,  give  it  some  peculiarity 
different  from  other  advertisements  which,  are  clamoring 
for  attention.  Liberal  white  space  about  a  headline  pre- 
vents anything  else  from  competing  with  it     Use  clear 

57 


58  WRITING  THE  AD 

face  type,  rather  than  a  letter  which  is  hard  to  read. 
A  picture  is  probably  the  best  attention-getter.  One 
which  shows  an  action  is  better  than  one  which  does  not. 
A  moving  device  has  special  attention-getting  force.  In 
both  cases,  however,  the  picture-writing  must  help  for- 
ward your  actual  selling  appeal.  When  picture  and 
headline  are  both  used,  the  headline  should  be  sub- 
ordinated to  the  picture,  and  both  should  co-operate  in 
leading  into  the  heart  of  your  appeal. 

Finding  the  Headline  that  will  Lead  the  Reader  from 
Attention  Direct  to  Interest 

With'  your  headline  you  have  made  your  prospect  stop 
involuntarily.  Why?  Obviously  because  you  want  him 
to  comply  with  your  advertisement.  Common  sense  dic- 
tates the  answer,  but  too  commonly  practice  merely 
stops  the  reader,  forgetting  that  display  and  headline 
have  no  selling  value  unless  they  impel  the  prospect  to 
read  on. 

At  the  instant  that  a  well  displayed  headline  stops 
the  reader,  it  conveys  to  him  an  idea  (step  1  in  the  last 
chart). 

This  idea  will  either  interest  (2),  or  fail  to  interest 
him  (2A).  If  it  fails,  your  reader  will  either  pass  your 
advertisement  by  (Position  3 A) — in  which  case  your 
heading  has  actually  prevented  your  prospect  from 
reading  your  advertisement;  or  his  involuntary  atten- 
tion will  be  attracted  by  something  else  in  your  adver- 
tisement (Position  3B). 

Position  3B  is  identical  with  Position  1.  The  "some- 
thing else"  which  at  this  point  draws  your  reader's 
attention,  therefore,  probably  contains  a  better  headline 
idea  than  the  one  you  chose.  The  headline  which  stops 
a  real  prospect,  but'  fails  to  convey  an  interesting  idea, 


HEADLINES  AND  DISPLAYS  59 

evidently  has  not  put  into  words  the  force  of  the  sales 
appeal  actually  inherent  in  your  product.  Your  idea 
and  wording  are  at  fault. 

If  the  idea  conveyed  by  your  headline  does  interest 
the  reader  (Position  2),  he  will  begin  to  read  the  text 
of  your  copy  with  the  anticipation  that  it  will  illuminate 
the  headline  idea.  He  is  now  in  Position  3.  If  this 
anticipation  is  not  realized  (Position  4A),  he  will  in- 
stead, get  from  your  copy,  a  new  idea  (Position  5A) 
that  will  in  turn  either  interest  or  fail  to  interest  him. 
Position  5A  is  identical  with  Position  1,  and  again  the 
reader  is  back  at  the  starting  point. 

If,  however,  the  anticipation  of  your  reader  is  real- 
ized (Position  4),  he  will  read  on  because  you  have  put 
into  your  headline  something  that  interests'  him — a  cor- 
rect appeal  to  his  buying  motives. 

The  best  headline,  therefore,  is  obviously  that  one 
which  interests  your  reader  in  the  body  of  your  adver- 
tisement through  the  direct  route  indicated  by  steps  1 
to  5.  This  is  the  shortest  and  safest  road  from  atten- 
tion to  interest.  Any  other  takes  him  by  a  way  round- 
about and  filled  with  dangers  of  losing  his  attention. 

Position  4A  in  the  chart  illustrates  the  chief  danger 
of  the  curiosity  headline.  The  reader  stops,  gets  your 
first  idea,  finds  it  attractive,  reads  on — and  is  dis- 
appointed— may  even  feel  that  he  is  fooled. 

The  following  advertisement  was  headed  with  sketches 
showing  a  four  horse  team  in  two  different  positions. 
In  the  second,  all  the  horses  were  pulling  even.  In  the 
first,  one  horse  was  doing  most  of  the  work. 

The  headline  is  clever  in  that  it  pictures  instantly,  by 
a  graphic  comparison,  the  idea  on  which  the  sales  appeal 
is  based.  Nevertheless,  the  chief  bid  of  the  headline  for 
interest  is  that  it  rouses  curiosity.    It  bids  for  the  atten- 


•0 


WRITING  THE  AD 


tion  of  the.  general  reader — and  gets  it.  The  advertiser 
expects  to  draw  into  his  subject  only  the  smaller  group 
which  includes  genuine  prospects. 


"Old  Joe"  is  Doing  All  The  Work 

You  are  not  getting  the  same  combustion 
efficiency  from  all  your  boiler  furnaces.  You 
have  not  equalized  the  draft  among  the  boil- 
ers. You  are  wasting  coal  because  you  do 
not  make  the  boilers  pull  together. 

You  need  a  Jones  Automatic  Gas  Collec- 
tor and  a  Draft  Gauge  for  each  boiler  furnace. 
You  need  a  Jones  Improved  Gas  Analysis 
Instrument.  With  this  equipment  you  can 
make  the  boilers  pull  together.  You  can 
drive  them  as  a  farmer's  boy  knows  how  to 
drive  his  horses. 


Often,  however,  a  purchasing  agent  runs  through  the 
advertising  pages  of  an  engineering  magazine  in  specific 
search  for  some  device  that  will  make  his  boilers  pull 
together.  Because  he  is  hunting  for  a  definite  thing,  the 
lighter  headline:  "Old  Joe  Is  Doing  All  the  Work"  will 
not  stop  him.  Instead,  it  will  act  as  a  wall  between 
him  and  the  product  he  wants  to  buy. 

Getting  into  the  advertisement,  the  reader  meets  the 
idea:  "You  are  not  getting  the  same  combustion  ef- 
ficiency from  all  your  boiler  furnaces."  This  idea  is  really 
the  keynote  of  the  appeal.  For  the  group  aimed  at,  it 
has  a  deeper  interest  than  that  of  curiosity.  At  the 
same  time  it  indexes  the  advertisement  for  the  purchas- 
ing agent.  It  has  in  it,  therefore,  an  idea  on  which  a 
better  headline  might  have  been  based. 

It  is  now  clear  that  your  headline  must  not  merely 
interest  your  prospect,  but  interest  him  in  an  idea 
directly  related  to  your  strongest  selling  appeals.    How 


HEADLINES  AND  DISPLAYS  W. 

shall  you  discover  or  develop  such  a  pulling  headline? 

Here  you  will  find  a  study  of  the  Advertising  Chart 
especially  valuable.  That  chart  was  first  designed  to  in- 
dicate the  tone  which  should  dominate  an  advertise- 
ment— the  tone  which  should  find  expression  in  your 
headline,  your  illustration  and  your  closing  appeal.  If 
your  product  belongs  in  Class  B,  you  must  seek  opening 
words  that  will  impress  the  reader  with  its  value  in  his 
business.  If  your  product  is  in  Class  C,  the  headline 
may  well  play,  up  one  of  its  unique  advantages.  If  in 
Class  A,  your  headline  must  make  your  prospect  feel  the 
disadvantage  of  being  without  your  goods. 

But  remember  that  a  headline  may  state  a  disadvan- 
tage and  yet  fail  to  make  your  prospect  feel  it.  To  in- 
sure his  interest  you  must  get  all  the  power  over  mind 
and  senses  which  words  can  give — you  must  make  him 
feel  his  disadvantage.  How  effectively  this  can  be  done 
is  show*  by  the  advertisement  of  gas  bath  water  heaters, 
reproduced  in  Chapter  IX.  The  headline  reads: 
"Ever  Go  Without  a  Bath  for  Lack  of  Hot  Water?" 

Here  is  a  question  that  challenges  the  reader's  memory 
of  many  occasions  when  he  felt  an  irritation  at  finding 
the  water  cold.    He  can  scarcely  resist  reading  on. 

Forethought  will  enable  you  to  put  an  equally  vivid 
appeal  into  your  headline,  whether  your  product  be  in 
Class  A,  B,  C,  or  D.  Only  get  vividly  in  mind  the  task 
of  your  copy  and  the  specific  motives  to  be  touched — 
the  leading  impulses  of  your  prospect  group.  Find  a 
common  point  in  the  experience  of  your  man  and  the 
appeal  of  your  product.  State  that  point  vigorously, 
with  virile  words  and  a  strong  verb.  Such  a  statement 
not  only  brings  your  prospect  sharply  to  attention ;  but 
in  the  most  direct  way,  interests  him  'n  your  sales 
appeal.    And  this  is  the  test  of  a  good  headline. 


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CHAPTER  IX 


Making  Copy  Plain  and  Interesting 

WHEN  you  sit  down  to  write  your  advertisement  re- 
member that  dozens  of  other  men  are  also  bombard, 
ing  the  busy  prospect.  A  thousand  things  cry  constantly 
for  his  attention.  He  will  pause  but  an  instant  to  puzzle 
out  a  tangled  statement.  You  cannot  hope  to  hold  him 
long.  Unless  you  interest  him,  you  cannot  hold  him  at 
all.    Therefore  be  brief ;  be  plain ;  be  interesting. 

Brevity  does  not  mean  paucity  of  ideas;  it  means  the 
telegraphic  style;  the  short  paragraph,  the  few  right 
words  that  flash  the  heart  of  your  sales  message;  the 
single  sentence  that  strikes  truly  at  not  only  one  buying 
motive,  but  at  the  most  powerful  combination  of  motives 
you  can  invoke  to  concentrate  his  thoughts  and  desirea 
upon  your  proposition. 

How  to  Think  Out,  Develop,  Reinforce  and   Test  a 
Piece  of  Copy 

The  gas  heater  advertisement  reproduced  in  this  chap- 
ter is  an  unusually  successful  one  from  the  pencil  of  a 
trained  copy  man.    Read  it  carefully. 

Notice  the  utility  appeal  in  the  headline.  The 
writer  of  this  advertisement  might  have  written  it: 
"Gas  Heaters  for  Bath  Rooms ;"  but  he  felt  instinctively 


PLAIN  COPY  63 

that  the  copy  he  wished  to  write  belonged  in  class  "A" 
on  the  Advertising  Chart;  that  it  required  an  un- 
expected expenditure  and  must  make  the  prospect  feel 
the  disadvantage  of  being  without  the  heater.  He  felt 
that  he  could  best  emphasize  this  disadvantage  by  mak- 
ing his  prospect  recall  vividly  a  specific  instance  of  it. 
1 '  Ever  go  without  a  bath  for  lack  of  hot  water  ? ' '  is  the 
idea  he  is  seeking;  it  reaches  the  senses  as  well  as  the 
brain;  it  reminds  the  prospect  of  the  discomfort  and 
vexation  he  felt  only  a  few  days  before  when,  wishing 
to  take  a  bath,  he  found  the  water  cold. 

To  make  your  copy  interesting  you  must  begin  right. 
You  must  have  not  a  faint  mental  image  of  the  work  of 
your  copy,  but  a  vivid  one.  Feel  the  task  of  your  copy; 
feel  it  strongly,  and  you  can  scarcely  help  thinking  of 
the  word,  phrase  or  sentence  that  will  flash  your 
message. 

Write  this  message  down;  then  study  it.  Consider 
closely  what  each  element  in  the  sentence  adds  to  it,  and 
measure  again  this  total  idea  by  your  feeling,  your 
realization  of  your  real  appeal.  Precisely  by  this 
method  we  have  determined  with  the  copywriter,  that 
"Gas  Heaters  for  Bath  Rooms"  is  not  the  best  headline, 
and  have  worked  from  it  to  the  one  actually  chosen. 

The  first  paragraph  of  the  advertisement  might  have 
been  written :  "If  so,  it  is1  your  own  fault. ' '  Had  you 
so  written  it,  would  you  not  at  once  have  felt  that  "your 
own  fault"  was  antagonistic?  Note  how  the  phrase 
"badly  managed  home"  not  only  avoids  this  antagon- 
ism, but  also  strikes  subtly  at  the  prospects  pride.  In 
writing  your  own  copy,  seek,  as  here,  to  make  your  cor- 
rection  do  double  service — eliminate  a  fault  and  add  a 
new  appeal. 

Step  three  touches  pride  in  "Out-of-date  water  heat- 


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66  WRITING  THE  AD 

ing  facilities, ' '  and  the  money  motive  in  "85-cent  gas." 
If  we  omit  the  last  four  words  of  Step  three,  and  the 
first  word  of  Step  four,  these  two  paragraphs  fall  into 
one  longer  single  sentence.  Why  didn't  the  writer  put 
it  this  way?  Because  he  had  his  audience  vividly  in 
mind.  He  knew  that  the  longer  paragraph  might  dis- 
courage some  of  his  readers  before  they  had  begun  to 
read  it.  For  the  same  reason,  he  divided  the  whole  copy 
into  short,  plain  type  paragraphs,  with  ample  white 
space  between  and  a  liberal  white  margin. 

Step  three  closes  with  the  words,  "is  a  big  mistake.' ' 
This  phrase  not  only  breaks  the  two  paragraphs,  but 
challenges  the  reader's  interested  "Why?"  Step  four 
answers,  and  does  a  great  deal  more.  It  appeals  to  the 
love  of  family  motive;  the  money  motive  in  the  word 
1 '  cheap ; ' '  the  utility  motive  in  the  word  * '  convenience ; ' ' 
self  indulgence  in  the  word  "luxury;"  and  pride  and 
emulation  in  the  phrase,  "which  most  of  our  neighbors 
are  enjoying. ' '  These  three  short  lines  appeal  specifically 
to  four  of  the  five  motives  in  the  Advertising  Chart. 

How  can  you  make  your  copy  combine  appeals  in  this 
broad  but  plain  and  forcible  way?  By  following  the 
same  route  which  the  writer  unconsciously  followed  in 
producing  Step  four.  His  first  thought  for  Step  four 
was  something  like  this: 

"It  means  that  you  are  depriving  yourself  of  a  con- 
venience that  you  can  well  afford." 

Suppose  this  had  been  your  first  thought  for  this  step  ? 
On  examining  it  you  feel  that  the  clause,  *  *  that  you  can 
well  afford,"  does  not  hit  hard.  The  word  "cheap" 
seems  a  better  substitute.     The  sentence  now  reads: 

"It  means  that  you  are  depriving  yourself  of  a  cheap 
convenience." 

The  meaning  is  now  plain.     Test  it  for  combined  ap- 


PLAIN  COPY  67 

peals.  Ask  yourself,  "Is  hot  water  more  than  a  cheap 
convenience  ? ' '    The  answer  comes  to  mind  instantly : 

"Yes,  it  is  a  luxury — a  luxury  that  other  people  are 
enjoying — that  most  of  your  neighbors  are  enjoying:" 

Condense  this  new  idea,  and  write  it  into  the  copy. 
You  now  have: 

"It  means  that  you  are  depriving  yourself  of  a  cheap 
convenience  and  luxury  which  most  of  your  neighbors 
are  enjoying." 

Study  the  new  form  closely.  "You  are  depriving 
yourself "  does  not  mention  the  rest  of  the  family. 
Here  is  an  opportunity  to  work  in  the  powerful  "love 
of  family"  appeal.    You  now  have  the  finished  form: 

"It  means  that  you  and  your  family  are  depriving 
yourselves  of  a  cheap  convenience  and  luxury  which 
most  of  your  neighbors  are  enjoying." 

You  have  gone  through  the  mental  route  by  which  it 
was  reached.  To  make  your  own  copy  plain  and  inter- 
esting, take  the  same  route. 

How  to  Adapt  the  Wording  of  Your  Copy  to  Suit  a 
Certain  Medium 

Adapt  your  words  and  arrangements  not  only  to  your 
prospects,  however,  but  also  to  your  mediums.  If  you 
are  using  bill  boards,  which  the  reader  must  see  as  his 
car  passes,  the  need  to  flash  the  heart  of  your  appeal  in 
a  few  words  is  imperative.  Along  a  suburban  railroad 
is  a  bill  board  several  hundred  feet  long.  Its  whole 
message  is  arranged  in  a  single  line: 

White  &  Co.— Rags— Curtains— Chairs— Office  Furnitnre— White  &  Co. 

Whether  coming  or  going,  even  at  a  speed  of  fifty 
miles  an  hour,  this  message,  because  brief  and  properly 
displayed,  is  flashed  upon  every  passenger  who  is  gazing 
out  of  the  window. 


68  WRITING  THE  AD 

If  you  are  using  street-car  cards,  the  time  element  is 
not  so  pressing ;  but  the  reader 's  distance  from  the  card 
requires  large  type,  which  means  brevity.  More  than 
thirty-five  words  are  too  many ;  type  smaller  than  forty- 
eight  point  is  too  small.  A  card  which  shows  an  ac- 
curate illustration  of  your  product,  and  has  only  a  dozen 
or  less  purchase-prompting  words  will  "pull"  better. 

In  a  certain  department  store  the  man  who  has  pur- 
chased a  necktie,  for  instance,  receives  it  in  an  envelope 
on  which  is  printed  a  short  advertisement  for  shirts, 
gloves  or  something  similar — but  the  envelope  never 
advertises  the  article  he  has  just  bought.  The  idea  be- 
hind this  assortment  of  envelopes  is  that  the  person  who 
has  just  bought  ties  is  now  interested  in  allied  lines. 

In  every  business,  similar  possible  mediums  are  being 
wasted. 

Booklet  and  circular  copy  may  follow  up  a  previous 
approach  or  develop  the  sale  from  the  beginning.  Such 
copy  often  takes  the  prospect's  extended  attention  too 
much  for  granted.  A  prospect  will  read  longer  and 
harder  on  a  contemplated  automobile  purchase  than  on 
a  lawn  mower.  His  interest,  on  the  average,  is  in  pro- 
portion to  the  strength  of  the  buying  motives  that  ac- 
tuate him.  You  can  entice  attention  farther  on  the  same 
offer,  however,  by  clean-cut  and  sympathetic  wording, 
by  arrangement  and  typography  that  transmit  your 
ideas  with  the  slightest  friction. 

If  you  find  your  copy  unread,  get  closer  to  your 
proper  tone  of  sales  making ;  strip  your  appeal  down  to 
the  real  weight  of  your  proposition  and  the  buying  mo- 
tives it  reaches.  Untangle  the  word  puzzles.  Be  con- 
cise. Be  plain.  Bear  on  the  vital  points  that  assure 
interest. 


CHAPTER  X 
Writing  In  the  Reasons  Why 

IN  advertising  a  laundry  soap,  a  manufacturer  worded 
as  follows  his  appeal  to  housewives,  through  various 
woman's  journals  and  other  mediums  reaching  the 
home: 

"Cleaner  Soap  is  different  from  other  makes.  It  is 
made  to  do  things  which  other  soaps  will  not  do — to 
lather  freely  in  any  kind  of  water,  hard  as  well  as  soft; 
to  work  best  in  cold  or  luke  warm  water;  to  loosen  dirt 
without  the  help  of  hard  rubbing  and  troublesome  boiU 
ing  in  a  steam  dripping  kitchen." 

This,  in  the  sense  covered  by  the  words  in  the  Adver- 
tising Chart,  is  real  reason-why  copy — copy  which  tells 
the  reader  why  he  should  choose  a  particular  one  among 
similar  products.  These  claims  were  such  as  no  other 
soap  manufacturer  had  previously  made.  They  were 
important — vital — such  as  to  set  the  prospect  searching 
store  after  store  and  refusing  substitutes  until  the  de- 
sired brand  was  found. 

If  your  soap  or  bluing  or  what-not  is  uniformly  sold 
over  the  same  counters  with  competing  lines,  suggestive 
or  publicity  copy  may  sell  it  for  you.  The  above  ad- 
vertiser might  have  filled  his  space  by  repeating  over 
and  over  the  phrase,  "Buy  Cleaner  Soap.,,    In  so  doing. 


70  WRITING  THE  AD 

however,  he  would  have  relied  for  trade  solely  upon  the 
good  nature  and  the  good  memory  of  customers.  A 
manufacturer  of  malted  milk  says  in  his  advertising: 

"Rich  milk — malted  grain — pure  nutrition — up-build- 
ing the  whole  body — invigorating  to  young  and  old — 
agrees  with  the  weakest  digestion.  Prepared  in  one 
minute." 

At  the  bottom,  of  his  advertisement,  in  large  type,  is 
the  exhortation: 

"Original  and  genuine — take  no  substitute/' 

Why  take  no  substitute?  The  answer  is  not  in  his 
copy.  The  copy  pleads  eloquently  for  malted  milk,  but 
gives  the  reader  not  the  slightest  reason  for  buying  the 
advertiser's  malted  milk  rather  than  his  competitor's. 

Indeed  his  competitors  do  very  little  advertising,  be- 
cause this  manufacturer  is  conducting  nothing  more 
than  a  general  publicity  campaign  for  all  malted  milk. 

The  province  of  a  local  dealer  is  to  oblige  his  cus- 
tomers in  every  way  possible.  The  popularity  of  his 
store  depends  upon  giving  service,  and  it  is  a  genuine 
service,  when  unable  to  fill  a  man's  order,  politely  to 
offer  him  the  next  best  thing  you  have  in  stock.  The 
burden  is  upon  the  manufacturer  of  any  particular 
brand  of  goods,  to  prove  that  substitution  is  not  a  real 
service — to  point  out  the  special  advantage  to  the  buyer 
of  his  particular  product — not  merely  the  fact  that  it 
is  the  original  product  in  the  field — not  merely  that 
malted  milk  in  general  is  healthful — but  a  genuine  argu- 
ment which  will  make  the  customer  meet  substitutes 
with  the  remark:  "That  brand  has  not  the  particular 
properties  or  qualities  that  I  want." 

Sweeping  statements  and  "  trumped-up ' '  claims  are 
only  "make  believe"  reasons- why.  A  tobacco  manu- 
facturer says  of  his  tobacco : 


EEASON  WHY  COPY  71 

M Greatest  in  the  world — best  ever — incomparable — 
iastes  fine." 

His  copy-writer  either  did  not  believe  this  or  believed 
it  blindly ;  but  he  felt  instinctively  that  men  must  have  a 
reason,  or  they  would  not  ask  for  his  goods.  Feeling- 
no  such  reason,  he  merely  fell  back  on  the  time-worn 
superlative,  thinking,  perhaps,  that  the  reader  could 
solve  the  riddle  better  than  he. 

In  marked  contrast  to  this  copy  is  an  advertisement 
which  says  that  the  brand  it  offers  "does  not  bite.,,  If 
you  are  a  smoker,  you  will  recognize  in  those  three 
words  a  specific  advantage  dear  to  the  heart  of  the 
smoker.  The  value  of  this  reason  is  that  it  shows  ac- 
tual knowledge  of  the  goods,  and  is  a  claim  so  easily 
tested  that  the  manufacturer  would  not  dare  to  make  it 
were  it  not  a  fact. 

Remember  that  the  Value  of  Your  Copy  Depends  on 
Making  Your  Claims  Believed 

The  weakness5  of  any  superlative  or  sweeping  claim — 
the  strength  of  any  specific,  guaranteed  or  easily  tested 
claim — is  in  the  disbelief  or  confidence  with  which  it  is 
received.  If  we  felt  sure  that  a  brand  were  "the  best 
on  earth, "  everyone  would  buy  it.  We  believe  no  such 
thing,  however,  and  the  proposition  is  usually  too  big 
for  any  advertiser  or  salesman  to  prove. 

To  make  your  reasons  specific  and  convincing,  study 
the  Advertising  Chart  in  connection  with  your  goods. 
Pick  out  the  strongest  appeals  that  belong  to  your  propo- 
sition, and  to  yours  only.  These,  and  not  the  appeals 
which  your  competitor  also  can  make,  are  the  ones  to 
emphasize  in  your  copy.  Let  the  buying  public  know 
briefly  that  you  have  also  those  good  qualities  common 
to  your  line  and  your  competitor's;   prove  that  your 


72  WRITING  THE  AD 

product  has  those  qualities  which  competitors  deny  to 
it;  but  emphasize  the  reasons  for  your  choice,  if  you 
would  avoid  substitution — and  wherever  possible  back 
up  your  claims  with  proof. 

The  value  of  proof  was  well  tested  by  a  manufacturer 
of  automobiles  who  felt  that  his  copy  should  be  pulling 
better.  In  a  sales  meeting  when  the  subject  was  under 
discussion,  he  said : 

"Boys,  hereafter  let's  prove  everything  we  claim. 
If  we  are  trying  to  sell  an  engine  on  the  fact  that  it 
will  start  when  the  weather  is  forty  degrees  below  zero, 
let's  first  have  the  proof  ready;  if  we  claim  it  will  run 
on  a  certain  amount  of  gasoline  per  mile,  let's  have  the 
proof  up  our  sleeve  and  swing  it  in  right  after  the  state- 
ment.' ' 

The  plan  was  religiously  followed  in  future  advertis- 
ing and  selling.  Claims  and  adjectives  which  could  not 
be  backed  were  ferreted  out  and  abandoned.  When  a 
statement  would  stand  proof,  tests  were  made,  proof 
sworn  to  and  the  evidence  put  to  work.  Everything  in 
the  advertising  was  established  either  by  testimonials, 
by  the  backing  of  a  well-known  authority,  or  by  test  and 
demonstration  recorded  beyond  dispute. 

The  confidence  and  enthusiasm  thus  aroused  made 
possible  the  final  step  in  proof,  which  absolutely  takes 
the  burden  of  chance  off  the  shoulder^  of  the  buyer — a 
sweeping  guarantee  of  the  car  by  the  manufacturer. 
Having  the  full  resources  of  the  great  concern  behind  it, 
this  proved  to  be  the  climax  in  establishing  the  claims 
for  the  automobile  and  speeding  up  the  sales  campaign. 

For  its  underlying  strength,  reason-why  copy  always 
goes  back  to  some  evidence.  Sometimes  a  photograph 
establishes  your  claims  beyond  dispute.  If  you  have 
built  up  the  reputation  of  your  company,  its  guarantee 


REASON  WHY  COPY  73 

or  merely  its  printed  word  settles  the  question.  Con- 
fidence is  an  important  asset  in  any  reliable  firm  name 
or  trademark.  Where  personal  testimony  is  brought 
forward  in  proof,  however,  the  copy  is  strengthened  by 
establishing  beyond  doubt  the  value  of  the  signed  state- 
ment. The  unsigned  quotation  or  fiction  speech  lacks 
eeriously  in  power  to  convince. 

Testimonials  have  been  so  generally  abused,  that  name 
and  address,  convincing  details  or  a  photograph  of  the 
original  copy  should  be  given  where  possible.  The  local 
dealer,  in  using  the  testimony  of  a  neighbor  in  good 
standing,  gets,  perhaps,  the  full  strength  of  the  personal 
testimonial. 

A  Wisconsin  plumber  who  had1  spent  money  liberally 
on  general  claims  for  the  advantages  of  hot  water  over 
6tove  heating,  changed  from  this  not  altogether  suc- 
cessful plan,  and,  during  his  second  season,  printed  in 
every  advertisement  at  least  one  quotation  like  the  fol- 
lowing, from  a  popular  local  merchant: 

"Mr.  J.  H.  Smith,  who  had  us  install  a  complete  hot 
water  heating  plant  September  1,  tells  us  that  it  kept 
his  store  warm  all  winter  with  half  the  trouble  and  one- 
third  less  coal  than  stove  heat,  used  the  year  before/' 

The  specific  selling  points,  such  as;  "one-third  less 
coal  and  half  the  trouble,''  backed  by  the  name  of  a 
reputable  neighbor  whom  any  prospect  could  interview 
on  the  subject  any  day,  immediately  strengthened  the 
plumber's  advertising. 

How  to  Avoid  Substitution — Putting  the  Reasons  Be- 
hind the  Brands  You  Offer 

The  man  who  advertises  lines  identical  with  compet- 
ing stores,  or  whose  goods  have  no  unique  merit,  must 
still  find  a  reason  for  being  in  business.    Such  a  reason 


74  WRITING  THE  AD 

easily  may  be  found  and  put  behind  his  selling  policy. 
He  may  add  to  his  goods  any  one  of  a  dozen  artificial  or 
external  appeals — such  as  convenience;  the  premium, 
discount  or  trading  stamps ;  delivery  facilities,  telephone 
facilities,  mail  order  conveniences,  rest  rooms,  courteous 
attention,  expert  service.  Any  one  of  these  special  ad- 
vantages may  inspire  powerful  reason-why  advertising 
which  will  decide  the  prospect  in  his  purchasing  habits. 

Two  western  dealers  in  gasoline  engines  found  mail 
order  competition  embarrassing.  To  meet  it,  one  of 
them  sent  a  circular  letter  to  ranch  owners  offering  his 
expert  advice  in  adapting  an  engine  to  the  ranchman's 
needs;  the  other  dealer  wrote: 

"Come  in  and  let's  talk  it  over.  You  can  tell  me 
just  what  work  you  have  to  do  and  I  can  tell  you  which 
engine  will  do  it  at  the  lowest  expense.  I  can  show  you 
how  to  put  in  a  line  shaft  and  connect  your  machinery 
so  as  to  run  all  your  machinery  at  the  same  time  with 
one  engine.  In  a  half  hour's  time  we  can  get  farther 
than  we  could  in  a  dozen  letters,  back  and  forth." 

The  second  dealer's  appeal  offered  a  genuine  reason 
for  buying  from  him.  The  first  dealer  had  merely  met 
the  mail  order  house  on  the  common  ground  of  an  in- 
definite claim,  without!  bringing  proof  to  it  by  inviting 
a  personal  visit. 

Every  advertisement  has  in  it  a  place  for  the  reasons 
that  should  support  the  desires  of  the  buyer.  These  may 
be  reasons  for  purchasing  a  product  in  class  "A"  or 
class  ' '  B, ' '  or  they  may  be  genuine  reasons- why  designed 
to  decide  the  buyer  in  making  a  choice  between  like 
products.  In  any  case,  the  clever  copy  man  goes  back 
to  the  genuine,  the  unique,  the  significant  reasons;  and 
having  given  them,  makes  them  " stick"  by  the  strong- 
est evidence,  proof  and  guarantee  to  be  had. 


CHAPTER  XI 

How  to  Word    Inducements  and    In- 
sure Response 

BY  good  copy,  through  which  runs  the  persuasive  cord 
of  a  clever  sales  plan  or  scheme,  your  prospect  has 
been  brought  to  attention,  to  interest,  to  the  attitude  of 
saying:  "That's  exactly  what  I  ought  to  get,  but — ." 

The  advertising  man  who  can  anticipate  this  one  final 
difficulty  which  is  discouraging  the  buyer,  and  can  meet 
it,  is  the  one  whose  copy  sells. 

The  purpose  of  an  inducement  is  to  meet  this  final 
excuse — to  overcome  inertia — to  fight  down  delay — to 
get  immediate  action.  The  inducement  paragraphs  in 
a  piece  of  copy  will  require  the  utmost  understanding 
and  tact.  There  must  be  no  compulsion;  but  only  the 
friendly  counsel  that  shows  immediate  action  as  ad- 
vantageous to  the  buyer.  First  this  may  be  merely  sug- 
gested. Stronger  insistence  will  follow,  re-echoing  the 
best  selling  points,  veiling  the  cost,  and  bringing  the 
advertisement  to  a  climax  in  which  advantage,  ease  of 
action  and  the  mental  picture  of  that  action,  concentrate 
their  force  upon  the  hesitating  prospect. 

Insincere  reasons  for  immediate  action  usually  sound 
insincere.  A  true  reason  can  generally  be  worded  in 
such   homely   details   as    to   carry   absolute   conviction. 

75 


76  WRITING  THE  AD 

Some  genuine  inducement  should  be  incorporated  in  the 
original  sales  plan,  so  that  the  copyman  can  say  more 
than:  "Step  lively,  please.' ' 

Thirteen  Different  Classes  of  Inducements  That  Im- 
pel the  Buyer  to  Quick  Acceptance 

A  time  limit  is  the  essence  of  an  inducement.  A 
money  saving  is  the  next  most  common  element.  In- 
ducements which  have  been  used  with  success  by  differ- 
ent advertisers  are : 

1.  Special  prices  during  the  dull  season. 

2.  Special  prices  in  return  for  names  of  prospects, 
special  services,  etc. 

3.  Special  prices  to  introduce  product. 

4.  Special  price  on  the  club  or  bulk  order,  such  as 
the  magazine  club  and  the  hundred  pound  freight  ship- 
ment. 

5.  The  cash  discount. 

6.  The  money-back  guarantee. 

7.  Free  trial  or  inspection  on  promissory  note. 

8.  The  instalment  deposit. 

9.  The  "last  chance''  or  exhausted  stock  induce- 
ment. 

10.  A  special  favor  offer,  due  to  past  trade. 

11.  Stock  specially  reserved,  subject  to  your  decision. 

12.  Advantage  and  value  which  you  can  no  longer 
afford  to  do  without. 

13.  Special  occasion  or  extra  offering  which  you  will 
enjoy  only  by  ordering  now. 

Each  of  these  types  of  inducement  can  be  varied  to 
Buit  different  businesses.  The  clever  life  insurance 
agency,  for  example,  mails  its  solicitation  of  more  in- 
surance to  reach  each  prospect  just  before  his  age 
change,  and  reminds  him  that  for  the  next  few  days 


GETTING  ACTION  77 

only,  he  can  get  more  insurance  at  the  lower  basis  rate. 

The  gas  heater  advertisement  reproduced  in  Chapter 
IX,  builds  a  clever  inducement  and  close  into  the  con- 
cluding paragraphs: 

"Why  not  let  us  pick  out  one  for  you  today?" 
it  inquires  suggestively. 

"Phone  Main  8642 — ask  for  the  Water  Heater  De- 
partment— tell  us  how  many  rooms  you  Jiave,  how  many 
people  in  your  family.  We  will  tell  you  just  wliat  type 
of  heater  you  need  to  fit  your  requirements." 

Thus  the  advertising  man  has  set  his  prospect  to 
thinking  of  immediate  action — indeed,  has  thought  out 
for  him  exactly  what  to  do  and  what  to  say.  All  the 
prospect  needs  to  do  is  to  step  to  the  telephone  and  fol- 
low directions.  Moreover,  there  is  a  good  reason  for 
doing  this  now : 

"These  are  tlie  days  when  the  bath  tub  calls  often — 
the  dog  days  when  7iight  time  finds  us  tired,  sticky  and 
uncomfortable." 

In  the  motives  most  open  to  sales  appeal — convenience, 
comfort  and  luxury — lies  an  excellent  reason  for  im- 
mediate action. 

"So  order  the  little  gas  heater  today." 

The  persuasion  becomes  insistent — impelling.  Un- 
consciously the  casual  reader  has  come  from  chance  at- 
tention, face  to  face  with  the  rather  pleasant  idea  of 
affording  himself  a  luxury  right  now. 

"Give  every  member  of  the  family  a  cliance  to  enjoy 
a  wonderfully  refreshing  and  invigorating  bath  as  often 
as  they  feel  like  it — " 

But  this  is  not  merely  a  pleasant  luxury,  he  is  again 
reminded.  All  the  comfort  which  those  enticing  ad- 
jectives bring  out  would  be  available,  not  merely  for 
himself,  but  for  every  member  of  the  family  he  loves. 


78  WRITING  THE  AD 

M — remember  the  'phone — Main  8642 — Water  Heater 
Department." 

The  picture  of  immediate  action  rises  again  before 
the  prospector's  imagination.  But — can  he  meet  the 
payments  ?    And  then — the  final  welcome  surprise : 

"Delivered  and  connected  in  your  home  free.  Monthly 
payments  if  you  like." 

He  can  manage  the  purchase  right  now — he  knows 
exactly  how  to  do  so — he  feels  doubly  the  discomfort  to 
which  he  is  submitting  every  hour  that  he  delays. 

To  follow  the  mental  steps  which  resulted  in  the  above 
copy,  is  to  find  a  natural  inducement  for  your  sales 
proposition  which  appeals  to  the  prospect,  and  to  those 
in  whom  he  is  most  interested — which  re-echoes  loudly 
the  strongest  sales  points  you  have  made — which  agree- 
ably surprises  the  reader  by  withdrawing  the  last  ex- 
cuse on  which  his  instinct  to  economy  has  been  leaning. 

There  is  a  tendency  in  all  of  us  to  postpone  action. 
Crowded  with  real  or  imagined  duties,  we  put  off  any 
decision  which  requires  thought  and  labor,  except  as  the 
necessity  or  advantage  of  it  overwhelms  our  inertia.  To 
think  out  and  word  for  us  the  mental  and  physical  re- 
actions necessary  to  the  purchase,,  is,  in  itself,  to  make 
action  easy — to  offer  an  inducement.  Any  convenience 
in  ordering,  such  as  the  coin  card  or  the  signature  blank, 
has  persuasive  value.  If  this  convenience  emphasizes 
logical  reasons  for  buying  now,  it  has  double  strength. 

Many  enclosures  are  haphazard.  The  clever  coupon, 
coin  card  or  blank,  meets  a  definite  excuse  which  the 
average  prospect  will  offer. 

A  life  insurance  company  anticipates  that  its  in- 
quirers will  not  know  exactly  what  information  they 
should  give  in  order  to  learn  the  rate  on  a  policy.  The 
blank,  therefore,  gives  spaces  to  fill  in  the  birthday  and 


GETTING  ACTION  79 

date,  and  to  check  the  various  insurance  advantages  in 
which  the  prospect  is  interested. 

A  clever  street  car  card  carries  a  pad  of  return  pos- 
tals which  get  special  attention  and  make  inquiry  easy. 
Another  dealer,  in  soliciting  a  cash-in-advance  or- 
der and  enclosing  the  order  blank,  impresses  the  pros- 
pect with  his  fairness  by  enclosing  also  a  receipt  for 
the  money,  in  blank,  carefully  worded  to  take  care  of 
the  prospect's  interests  and  bearing  across  the  end  this 
endorsement,  which  the  prospect  can  sign  and  collect  on : 

"We  prefer  not  to  use  your  proffered  plan  just  now, 
so  please  return  the  amount  of  this  receipt  at  once." 

The  strength  of  the  corner  coupon  is  that  it  makes  re- 
sponse easy  and  encourages  the  impulse  which  the  in- 
ducement has  set  in  motion.  The  local  grocer  gets  the 
same  effect  by  circulating  order  forms,  or  erasable 
'phone  cards,  on  which  the  housewife  can  check,  day  by 
day,  her  kitchen  wants.  The  glove  manufacturer  and 
the  jeweler  anticipate  doubt  as  to  the  size  by  sending 
a  glove  tape  or  a  card  of  ring  sizes  with  the  order- 
getting  letter.  The  clever  shoe  dealer  follows  up  his 
customers  with  a  card  stating  the  size  and  style  of 
shoes  last  purchased,  and  thus  making  the  re-order  easy. 

An  inducement  and  means  of  easy  response  can  often 
be  hinged  upon  local  circumstances.  During  a  con- 
tagious epidemic,  a  clever  dealer  put  at  the  bottom  of 
his  advertisement: 

"Don't  come  down-town  to  buy — it  is  not  wise. 
Phone  Elmwood  379,  380  or  381  and  say  'Rush  delivery 
by  motorcycle.9  A  skilful  store  buyer  will  take  your  or- 
der, suit  your  wants  in  all  departments  of  our  store, 
make  the  charge  and  rush  delivery  to  you  without  your 
having  the  danger  of  coming  down  town  or  the  incon- 
venience of  calling  our  various  departments." 


CHAPTER  XII 
Blocking  Out  Your  Advertisement 

COPY — mental  appeal  to  buying  motives — is  the 
vital  thing  in  an  advertisement.  Layout,  form, 
style  of  type  and  printing  are  merely  the  tools  or  ve- 
hicles of  expression.  The  question  of  layout  should  not 
be  neglected  until  the  copy  is  complete.  The  form  and 
message  ought  to  grow  up  together,  each  strengthening 
the  other  so  that  the  advertisement,  whether  persuasive 
or  merely  suggestive,  gets  its  full  weight  behind  the  vital 
appeals  and  strikes  a  sledge-hammer  blow,  rather  than  a 
series  of  taps. 

How    to    Plan   Your  Advertisement — What  an   Un- 
usual Layout  Is  Worth 

Whether  in  the  simple,  all-type  advertisement,  in  the 
richly  illustrated  magazine  section,  on  the  electric  sign 
or  in  booklet  form,  the  whole  value  of  any  layout  de- 
pends upon  its  transferring  your  message  to  your  aver- 
age prospect's  mind  and  will,  by  the  shortest  route  with 
the  least  friction.  An  advertisement  which  sends  the 
reader's  mind  down  some  by-path  of  casual  humor  or 
curiosity,  has  gone  the  long  way  around. 

"When  I  first  plan  out  an  advertisement, ' '  said  an 
experienced  copy-man,   "I   begin   by  considering   very 


BLOCKING  OUT  ADS  81 

carefully  the  form  and  make-up  of  the  advertisements 
with  which  my  copy  is  to  compete.  I  do  this  not  to 
imitate,  but  to  differentiate.  Next  I  often  run  through 
a  file  of  the  cleverest  advertisements,  circulars,  booklets 
and  other  matter  which  I  have  been  able  to  collect.  Then 
I  try  to  get  out  doors  for  a  half  hour,  during  which  I 
get  clearly  in  mind  the  chief  appeal  of  my  goods,  the 
outside  appeals  which  I  may  use  to  advantage,  the  sell- 
ing plan  and  the  people  I  am  to  address.  Then  I  come 
back  to  my  desk  and  sketch  several  layouts. 

"My  central  idea  at  this  point  is  to  get  something  un- 
usual, striking,  something  that  will  halt  the  attention 
and  force  the  interest  of  the  particular  class  for  which 
I  am  writing.  There  are  a  dozen  factors  that  may  sug- 
gest a  novel  layout : 

1.  Size  and  shape  of  page  or  booklet. 

2.  Kind  of  paper. 

3.  Colors. 

4.  Illustrations — possibility  of  picture  writing. 

5.  (Special  arrangements  of  matter. 

6.  Headlines. 

7.  Kinds  and  arrangement  of  type. 

8.  Clever  and  illuminating  instances  or  figures  of 
speech. 

9.  Making  the  whole  advertisement  a  representation 
of  something  significant,  such  as  a  booklet  in  the  shape 
of  the  article  advertised. 

1 '  After  making  four  or  five  sketches  of  unusual  inter- 
est and  force,  I  go  back  to  the  purpose  of  my  advertise- 
ment. I  test  these  layouts  and  choose  the  one  which,  at 
all  points,  keeps  most  closely  to  the  real  business  in 
hand.  If  an  oddly  shaped  advertisement  or  booklet  not 
only  gets  attention,  but  emphasizes  the  business  and  the 
article  offered  for  sale — if  the  illustration,  the  figure  of 


82  MAKING  LAYOUTS 

speech  or  even  some  play  on  words  makes  the  appeal 
more  plain,  more  interesting,  more  forceful — I  accept  it 
as  my  preliminary  layout  and  write  my  copy  about  it  as 
the  frame  work." 

Writing  In    the  Details  of  Style  and  Arrangement 
that  Make  an  Advertisement  Effective 

Having  determined  upon  these  main  features  of  an 
advertising  page  or  booklet,  the  workman-like  copy- 
writer develops  his  subheads  and  paging  as  a  part  of  his 
literary  plan.  Headings,  introductory  lines  of  large 
type,  initials,  "box  ruling/ '  the  arrangement  of  columns 
are  all  "schemed"  to  make  the  message  brief,  plain, 
forcible  and  on  the  air  line  between  thought  and  sale. 

Among  the  rules  of  layout  which  make  the  form  of  aa 
advertisement  favorable  to  its  success  are  the  follow- 
ing ones: 

1.  Choose  the  kind  of  type  which  is  in  good  taste  for 
your  business,  light  and  airy  for  dainty  things,  strong 
and  heavy  for  the  motor  or  engine,  because  this  kind  of 
type  rather  leads  your  readers  into  your  subject,  than 
distracts  them. 

2.  Avoid  meaningless  ornamentation,  fanciful  letter- 
ing and  intricate  arrangement  because  these  add  fric- 
tion to  the  process  of  reading. 

3.  Tests  have  shown  that  the  eye  reads  such  plain, 
legible  type  faces  as  Caslon  most  quickly  and  with  the 
least  possible  fatigue. 

4.  Every  advertisement  a  store  or  firm  issues  can 
cleverly  be  given  a  company  personality  by  using  a  cer- 
tain type  constantly  for  the  headline  or  firm  name,  or  a 
certain  style  of  ornamentation  or  arrangement.  It  is 
wise  to  have  this  hand-lettered  and  etched  to  give  a 
greater  air  of  distinction. 


BLOCKING  OUT  ADS  83 

5.  Capital  letters  are  harder  to  read  than  small  let- 
ters as  tests  have  proved. 

6.  For  reading  matter  the  size  of  newspaper  type,  a 
two-inch  column  is  the  most  practical  width  of  line  as  to 
ease  in  reading.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  read  a  long 
line  of  small  type,  and  a  safe  rule  is  never  to  use  a 
column  more  than  five  inches  wide  in  type  less  than  14 
point.  Longer  lines  should  be  set  even  larger  propor- 
tionately. 

7.  Just  as  a  long  line  wearies  the  attention  and 
makes  it  difficult  to  catch  the  next  line  on  the  return,  so 
the  long  paragraph,  the  involved  sentence  and  lines 
crowded  close  together  make  your  advertisement  hard 
to  read  and  understand.  The  eye  is  eager,  but  it  chooses 
advertisements  which  are  most  inviting  in  appearance. 
By  breaking  up  your  page  into  columns  of  proper  width, 
with  clear,  well  spaced  type  and  matter  which  looks 
"conversational,"  you  win  more  readers  and  get  your 
message  to  a  greater  number  in  the  short  time  you  can 
hold  their  attention. 

8.  Moreover,  the  same  inviting  openness  of  arrange- 
ment applies  equally  well  to  the  whole  page.  The  eye 
and  mind,  like  the  mouth  and  stomach,  are  unable  to 
drink  in  all  that  can  be  crowded  upon  them.  By  mak- 
ing the  page  open  and  balancing  the  masses  of  type  or 
illustrations  in  a  way  not  too  formal,  you  assist  eye  and 
mind  in  working  to  their  full  capacity. 

9.  Illustrations  and  charts,  subheads  and  colors  are 
valuable  to  emphasize  some  selling  point  and  make  it 
easy  for  the  reader  to  grasp.  Have  the  photograph  or 
drawing  right  in  subject,  taken  from  the  right  angle  and 
worked  up  in  a  skillful  manner  to  emphasize  this  selling 
point. 

The  arrangement  of  an  involved  page,  such  as  a  de- 


84  MAKING  LAYOUTS 

partment  store  advertisement,  gives  the  advertising  man 
a  chance  to  show  much  ingenuity. 

Making  a  Crowded  Advertisement  Easy  and  Attrac- 
tive to  the  Average  Reader 

A  city  department  store  recently  published  an  adver- 
tisement, listing  about  one  hundred  bargains  in  gowns 
and  coats.  The  body  of  this  advertisement  was  put  into 
a  single  paragraph  longer  and  broader  than  a  man's 
hand,  close  spaced  and  in  only  medium-sized  type. 

A  rival  store  took  just  twice  this  amount  of  space,  and 
under  forty-five  different  headings,  advertised  plainly 
and  attractively  some  750  definite  bargains,  every  one 
with  list  and  cut  prices,  and  with  many  illustrations. 

The  second  advertisement  used  every  abbreviation  pos- 
sible without  sacrificing  clearness;  it  eliminated  every 
capital  letter  except  in  proper  names ;  it  used  small  type 
in  narrow  columns  well  leaded  and  spaced;  it  avoided 
superlatives  and  worded  every  item  in  a  style  such  as: 

"$24  for  men's  $35  suits,  made  of  fine  homespun.'' 

"Five  cents  for  eight-cent  apron  gingham — two  to  ten 
yards." 

"Twenty  per  cent  off  rustic  hick,  chairs,  tables,  etc." 

At  the  head  of  every  list  appeared  the  name  of  the 
sale,  the  location  of  the  counter,  the  name  of  the  article 
or  class  of  goods  in  big  type,  and  wherever  possible,  a 
black  sketch  suggesting  the  type  of  goods. 

frhis  is  only  one  of  many  possible  ways  to  cut  out  the 
friction  in  an  involved  advertisement.  You  may  use  the 
same  principle  which  appears  so  effectively  in  the  show 
window,  or  the  10-cent  counter;  once  for  all  feature  the 
price  and  follow  it  by  a  list  of  the  goods;  or  feature 
either  quality,  selection  or  selling  appeal  and  follow 
with  the  list  in  which  you  have  interested  readers. 


BLOCKING  OUT  ADS 


85 


In  wording  your  advertisement  and  making  your  lay- 
out, consider  the  readers"  you  are  addressing.  There  is  a 
class  of  readers  who  note  merely  the  headlines  and  the 
final  paragraph;  another  class  who  catch  the  subheads 
and  the  leading  facts  under  each ;  yet  another  class  who 
read  the  entire  advertisement  word  by  word.  The 
widest  possible  appeal  belongs  to  the  advertisement 
which  is  arranged  to  suit  all  these  reading  habits  and 
makes  itself  plain  enough  for  any  one  to  understand. 

The  experienced  advertiser  who  has  made  a  study  of 
types  and  balance  can,  from  his  finished  copy  and  his 
preliminary  sketch,  make  up  a  final  layout  or  dummy 


Number  of  Average  Words  Per  Square 
Inch  of  Type 

Average    Book 
Type — Size 

Number  of  Words  to  Square  Inch 

Set   Solid 

Set  Leaded 

Five         Point 
Six           Point 
Seven      Point 
Eight       Point 
Nine        Point 
Ten          Point 
Eleven     Point 
Twelve    Point 

69 
47 
38 
32 
28 
21 
17 
14 

50 
34 
27 
23 
21 
16 
14 
11 

showing,  paragraph  by  paragraph  or  page  by  page,  the 
use  of  rules,  illustrations,  ornaments,  and  practically 
every  detail  from  headline  to  address  or  coupon.  It  is 
well  to  make  this  layout  simple,  merely  indicating  with 
a  pencil  the  mass  of  each  column  or  paragraph,  noting 
opposite  each  in  the  margin  the  style  and  size  of  type 
to  be  used  and  by  a  letter  or  number  referring  to  the 
piece  of  copy  which  will  occupy  that  space. 

Copywriters  sometimes  have  proofs  made  of  average 
reading  matter  in  the  most  used  type  sizes  and  faces, 
from  which  a  block  containing  the  desired  number  of 
words  is  cut,  to  be  posted  on  the  layout  as  an  indication 


86  MAKING  LAYOUTS 

of  the  space  the  copy  will  take  up.  By  measurement 
and  reference  to  the  preceding  table  of  type  sizes,  the 
layout  can  be  made  quite  accurately. 

Before  the  final  proof  of  an  advertisement  is  0.  K'd, 
it  is  well  to  score  it  by  some  list  of  tests  which  show  its 
relative  strength  from  various  important  angles.    From 


Twelve  Tests  of  an  Advertisement 


Suited  to  prospect— touches  vital  motives? 


2  Suited  to  business  as  to  reliability,  fairness  and  house  personality? 

3  Timely— trade  news?. , 

4  Impels  or  repels  reading?  _______________________________ 

5  Arrangement  and  white  space? , 

6  Illustrations? 

7  Sincerity,  truthfulness  and  force  for  building  confidence  and  prestige? . 

8  Shows  knowledge  of  product's  selling  points? 

9  Proper  tone  of  appeal? __ 


10  Impresses  reader  with  services  offered?. 

11  Assures  getting  money's  worth? 

12  Induces  to  immediate  action? 


Total 


Appraising  pieces  of  successful  and  unsuccessful  copy  by  some  fixed  standard  often  re- 
veals the  secrets  of  the  result  and  suggests  points  of  added  strength.  The  various  tests 
here  summed  up  in  the  form  of  twelve  questions  permit  of  scoring  each  feature  by  points 

similar  lists  one  advertiser  has  made  up  the  above  list 
of  twelve  questions  by  which  he  scores  his  advertise- 
ment, 100  per  cent  being  a  perfect  score  and  8J  per 
cent  representing  a  perfect  grade  under  each  heading. 

Results  are  the  only  final  test  of  an  advertisement. 
Therefore  the  clever  advertising  man  rates  all  prelimi- 
nary judgments  and  tests  as  subject  to  the  outcome  of 
the  campaign.  From  season  to  season,  however,  he 
studies  the  advertisements  which  have  succeeded  or 
failed,  and  from  them  learns  that  which  perfects  the 
form  and  substance  of  his  copy. 


II II 

Part  IF 


PLANNING  OUT  MEDIUMS,  SPACE 
AND  APPROPRIATIONS 


Putting  Your  Campaign  Into  Effect 

WHEN  you  begin  to  plan  a  full-round  advertising 
campaign,  you  encounter  several  of  the  most  intri- 
cate and  puzzling  problems  in  the  field  of  selling. 
How  much  money  ought  you  to  spend  for  this  campaign? 
How  are  you  going  to  distribute  this  fund — in  many 
small  advertisements  or  in  a  few  prominent  insertions? 

What  are  the  most  effective  of  these  mediums  that  are 
urged  upon  you  by  dozens? 

Where,  fundamentally,  are  your  richest  sales  districts — 
whose  trade  comes  easiest,  is  most  permanent,  most  gen- 
erous and  most  profitable? 

The  experiments  and  experience  of  clever  pioneers  in  ad- 
vertising have  brought  out  a  few  solid  principles  that 
will  assist  you  in  deciding  these  chief  features  of  your 
campaign.  But  you  will  find  no  one  who  has  exactly  the 
same  problems  that  you  have.  Finally,  you  will  have  to 
get  out  into  the  advertising  field  and  blaze  your  own 
trail.  As  you  study  your  field,  your  prospects  and  your 
mediums  first  hand,  you  will  learn  to  forecast  shrewdly 
what  various  situations  demand. 

The  all-important  thing  is  to  get  away  from  haphazard 
advertising.  Get  a  basis — set  up  standards  by  which  to 
observe  the  progress  of  your  campaigns.  Advertising 
has  a  definite  place  in  modern  business,  with  a  definite 
function — to  arouse  demand  and  put  buyers  in  contact 
with  supply.  In  the  accounting,  advertising  does  not 
belong  among  the  luxuries  or  the  indefinables.  It  is  a 
definite  sales  force  and  demands  a  definite  ledger  page. 
Good  business  will  never  recede  from  its  insistence  that 
you  know  where  your  advertising  goes  and  what  it  does; 
that  you  check  up  the  expense  accounts  of  your  adver- 
tisements as  you  do  of  your  salesmen,  and  give  bigger  op- 
portunities to  those  that  get  best  results. 

■        m 

■  !■  =■■■ 


Ill 


nil 


CHOOSING    THE    MEDIUMS    FOR   THE 
ADVERTISING     CAMPAIGN 

r-  Written 

|-|  Sales    Letters 

Newspapers  1 

Genera]  Magazines] 

-  Space  Advertising 

Class  and  Trade  Journals 

P     '   d"     I   1 

1 

•1 

Trade  Lists  and  Text 

Special  Publications  | 

Catalogs  | 

1 

Circulars  and  Form  Letten 

House  Publications 

for 
Private  Distribution 

Booklets  | 

1 

House  Organs  | 

Salesmanship- 
Developing    _ 
Demand 

Suppliers'  Literature 

-  Printed 

Quotation  Sheets  1 

! 

Sales  Slips,  Wrappers,  Etc. 

r 

Electric  Signs  | 

Posters) 

Movable  and  Fixed 
Sign   Boards 

-  Signs  and  Displays 

Street  Car  Cards  | 

1 

Show    Cards  | 

Displays  of  Product 

Moving  Pictures) 

Souvenirs    and 
,  Novelties 

Varied  to  Suit  Prospects 
and    Occasions 

-   Spoken 

- 

~\  Field   Salesmen 
A  House  Salesmen 

Printed,  spoken 
velop  demand  f 
cient,  must  act 

m 

and  written 
:>r  goods.    P 
through  me 

s: 
rin 

Jib 

ilesmanship  are  the 
ted  salesmanship,  o 
ims  fitted  to  the  fie 
selling  plan 

fo 

r  a 
Id 

rces  available  to  c 

dvertising,  to  be  e 

the  offer   and   t 

le- 

ffi- 
he 

■ 

■ 

m: 


:tii 


CHAPTER  XIII 
Locating  Your  High -Profit  Prospects 

MARSHALL,  the  leading  piano  dealer  in  a  rocky 
mountain  city,  had  just  installed  a  new  line  of  in- 
struments which  gave  him  a  complete  stock  from  the 
$1,300  Grand,  down  to  the  "$15-down-and-$5-a-month" 
instrument  that;  gives  the  children  in  the  poor  districts 
their  first  idea  of  culture. 

As  Marshall  stood  in  his  third  floor  stockroom  and 
looked  out  across  the  city,  his  forehead  wrinkled  with 
thought.  u  Every  home  within  my  view  seems  to  be  a 
prospect  for  my  instruments ;  but  certain  of  those  homes 
are  more  than  mere  possibilities  of  a  sale — they  are  vital, 
high-profit  prospects.  How  can  I  distinguish  between 
the  easy  and  the  difficult  sales — how  can  I  pick  out  my 
high-profit  prospects  and  bring  them  to  my  store?" 

It  takes  patience  to  build  up  a  high-profit  prospect 
list.  It  means  accuracy,  personal  acquaintance — clever 
detection  of  unrealized  ambitions  and  wishes.  The 
piano  dealer  spent  thirty  days  and  $1,500  building  up 
his  list  of  possible  piano  purchasers. 

He  went  to  the  little  pencil  and  candy  shop  across  the 
street  from  each  ward  school  in  the  city.  With  the 
proprietors  he  arranged  to  display  window  placards,  an- 


90  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

nonncing  a  prize  contest.  Every  boy  or  girl  who  would 
come  into  the  shop  and  fill  out  a  registration  blank  was 
given  a  sack  of  candy  and  a  coupon  number  which  might 
win  one  of  twenty-two  valuable  prizes  offered.  The 
piano  dealer  purchased  his  candy  from  each  individual 
storekeeper,  and  the  latter,  in  turn,  handled  the  contest 
locally. 

When  the  coupons  were  assembled,  they  gave  the  name 
and  address  of  nearly  every  parent  of  school  children  in 
the  city.  They  also  indicated  the  number  and  ages  of 
the  children,  and  whether  or  not  the  family  owned  or 
played  the  piano,  or  was  considering  the  purchase  of  a 
piano. 

When  the  advertising  campaign  was  put  to  work  upon 
this  costly  list,  it  resulted  in  probably  the  greatest  piano 
selling  campaign  the  city  had  ever  seen. 

Tests  often  show  amazing  facts  that  upset  all  previous 
ideas  as  to  who  want  your  product.  A  manufacturer 
was  surprised  to  find  that  orders  came  chiefly  from  men 
when  his  advertising  had  been  addressed  to  women. 
Records  have  revealed  many  surprising  things  about  the 
relation  of  city,  town  and  country  in  connection  with 
groups  of  prospects.  We  do  not  know  our  best  prospects 
except  by  investigation. 

It  is  a  simple  matter  to  choose  typical  territory  and 
prospect  lists  in  various  lines,  keying  your  advertisement 
differently  for  each  and  tabulating  the  results.  Such 
tests  have  proved  that  blind  advertisements  and  adver- 
tisements sacrificing  selling  value  to  general  interests, 
usually  draw  a  large  number  of  " curiosity' '  inquiries 
which  are  a  heavy  liability  in  the  follow-up.  Clever 
advertisers  frequently  request  a  remittance  of  a  stamp 
or  a  dime,  thus  culling  out  these  low-profit  prospects. 
The  clever  merchant  also  chooses  his  advertising  leaders 


LOCATING  PROSPECTS  •* 

and  limits  the  quantity  of  the  bargain  which  each  person 
is  permitted  to  buy,  in  order  to  keep  down  the  percent- 
age of  mere  bargain  hunters  and  draw  to  his  store  those 
who  will  buy  large  bills. 

A  mail  order  man  in  Tennessee  often  took  lists  on 
which  the  best  prospects  had  most  carefully  been  checked, 
and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  his  plan,  at  the  last  minute 
would  order  the  whole  lot,  good  and  bad,  to  be  circular- 
ized. The  small  town  merchant  instructs  his  advertising 
man  to  miss  no  one,  for  "there  is  no  telling  who  may 
buy." 

This  principle  leads  to  spectacular  orders,  but  entails 
an  average  loss.  There  are  many  ways  to  forecast  high- 
profit  prospects.  Clever  analysis  of  prospects  into  buy- 
ing groups  is  the  basis  of  successful  advertising. 

One  manufacturer  carries  an  advertisement  in  a  na- 
tional medium  throughout  the  year,  merely  for  the  indi- 
cations it  gives  him  of  timely  buying  in  various  sections 
and  of  largest  consistent  demand  in  certain  states. 

A  publisher's  sales  manager  made  his  appeal  to  the 
school  teachers  in  seven  states,  and,  upon  the  returns 
secured  the  first  season,  focused  subsequent  campaigns 
upon  forty  high-profit  counties.  Analysis  of  his  first 
year's  returns  showed  that  his  most  profitable  prospects 
were  in  country  school  districts  and  in  towns  of  less  than 
2,500,  within  only  two  of  the  seven  states.  Further  an- 
alysis enabled  him  to  handle  his  follow-up  letters  under 
six  different  divisions,  which  made  an  unusually  personal 
appeal,  each  to  its  class.  His  focused  advertising  in- 
creased gross  returns  and  cut  expenses. 

By  reference  to  tax  lists  an  automobile  dealer  with 
rights  covering  twelve  counties,  was  enabled  to  focus  on 
professional  men  in  paved-street  towns,  and  farm  owners 
of  a  certain  rating,   as  the  two  high-profit  groups  oi 


92  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

prospects  for  his  car.  This  information  enabled  him  to 
reach  his  men  with  a  banquet  and  demonstration  day 
far  too  expensive  to  be  used  as  a  general  follow-up. 

When  It  Pays  to  Get  Out  and  Choose   the   Prospects 
for  Your  List 

In  some  lines,  personal  field  work  upon  your  prospect 
list  is  well  worth  while.  A  clever  dry  goods  store  has 
alloted  a  rural  route  to  each  of  its  salesmen.  The  sales- 
man has  a  day  to  cover  this*  route  once  a  month  and  re- 
vise his  card  list  of  prospects  upon  it.  Whenever  a 
special  sale  is  to  be  advertised  or  a  job  lot  offered,  each 
salesman  picks  from  his  list  the  high-profit  prospects 
most  likely  to  buy.  The  plan  gives  almost  100  per  cent 
efficiency  to  the  store's  circularizing. 

One  cityj  druggist  will  rely  upon  the  judgment  of  no 
subordinate  in  making  up  his  prospect  list.  He  makes 
his  own  visits  among  the  doctors  of  the  city,  keeping  up 
his  acquaintance  and  maintaining  a  list,  never  more 
than  six  weeks  old,  of  professional  prospects.  Doctors 
are  quite  likely  to  remind  him  if  they  miss  his  prescrip- 
tion pads  and  follow-up  letters  announcing  the  latest 
stocks  and  conveniences  for  the  accurate  prescription 
work  on  which  he  holds  almost  a  "quality  monopoly." 

A  Canadian  store  studied  the  tax  records  and  made  a 
map  of  its  territory  indicating  by  spots  of  various  tints, 
the  prospect  groups  especially  profitable  for  different 
grades  of  goods.  The  same  plan  on  a  vast  scale  has  been 
used  by  a  national  advertiser. 

How  Analysis  of  the  Prospect   Situation   Stopped  a 
Slump  in  the  Business  of  a   Store 

The  new  manager  of  a  St.  Louis  department  store 
faced  the  problem  of  the  terrific  summer  slump.     His 


LOCATING  PROSPECTS 


93 


solution  of  that  problem  was  to  determine,  with  math- 
ematical  accuracy,  just  where  his  best  prospects,  past 
and  future,  for  all  lines  of  goods,  were  located.  How  he 
did  this  is  a  story  full  of  interest  and  suggestion  to  every 
national  or  local  advertiser. 


Delivery 
DUtrict 

Comparative  Statement   Parcel   Deliveries 
During  Summer   Months 

May 

1- 

May 
Mil 

May 
MM 

June 
MM 

June 
Ml.    | 

July 
1910 

July 
1911 

Aug. 
1910 

Aug. 

1911 

1 

2719 

3852 

4718 

3024 

3295 

2924 

3385. 

2415 

3127 

2 

3502 

5384 

6998 

4696 

6014 

>3946 

4890 

2911 

3789 

3 

3205 

4824 

6376 

3800 

6024 

3054 

3678 

2518 

2403 

4 

2558 

3291 

4070 

2818 

3084 

2317 

2313 

1688 

2049 

5 

5625 

6380 

6695 

4424 

5819 

4326 

4594 

3124 

3603 

6 

4146 

5819 

6309 

4714 

5158 

3256 

3199 

1957 

1727 

7 

3068 

4163 

5112 

3590 

4026 

2128 

2019 

1564 

1397 

8 

6824 

9350 

11385 

6802 

8695 

4234 

5678 

2674 

3485 

9 

2244 

4438 

4567 

2602 

4112 

2596 

3482 

1924 

1258 

10 

2972 

4397 

4801 

3526 

4258  ' 

2640 

2741 

1763 

1873 

11 

3712 

5621 

6409 

4092 

5107 

3644 

3137 

2077 

2383 

12 

4318 

6374 

10456 

5737 

4982 

3672 

4329 

2285 

3267 

13 

2912 

5173 

6723 

3653 

5217 

2506 

3133 

1767 

2121 

14 

2412 

4416 

5891 

3105 

4407 

2032 

2546 

1547 

1755 

47217, 

73482 

87510 

56583 

69198 

43335 

49124 

30204 

34237 

Tabulation  of  the  number  of  parcels  delivered  on  each  city  delivery  route  during  each 
dull  month,  vear  by  year,  showed  the  manager  of  a  St.  Louis  department  store  what 
CTOup*  of  prospects  he  was  overlooking.  He  was  thus  enabled  to  focus  on  these  groups 
and,  as  shown  by  the  totals,  to  increase  his  summer  business  steadily  from  year  to    ear 

On  detecting  the  first  stages  of  the  slump  he  called  in 
his  department  heads.  "Our  people,"  said  they,  "leave 
the  city  in  summer." 

The  new  manager  challenged  this  statement  and  found 
that  not  over  twelve  per  cent  of  the  population  bought 


94  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

outward  bound  transportation  during  rJune,  iTul/  and 
August. 

"If  we  are  serving  only  twelve  per  cent  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  this  great  city,"  said  he,  "we  are  only  scratch- 
ing the  soil  of  opportunity.  We  must  reach  more 
people/ ' 

Delivery  slips  for  months  back  were  then  tabulated, 
showing  that  from  the  fashionable  sections  where  trade 
was  now  falling  off,  came  most  of  the  year's  business. 
Four  routes  covering  the  great  middle  class  and  labor- 
ing sections  of  the  city — the  staple  elements  in  the  city's 
trade  indicated  low  deliveries  throughout  the  year. 

The  manager  of  the  store  now  sent  for  a  list  of  his 
own  employees  and  interviewed  those  likely  to  be  best 
informed  as  to  local  classes  and  buying  tastes.  Within 
a  month  the  territory  had  been  divided  by  classes,  maps 
had  been  made,  new  goods  had  been  purchased  to  suit 
these  various  buying  groups  as  described  by  employees 
from  every  section  and  the  advertising  began  to  go  out 
with  a  new  directness  of  aim. 

The  advertising  man  knew  just  what  goods  he  should 
feature,  for  newspaper  circulation  showed  him  just  what 
section  and  classes  each  medium  was  reaching.  Where 
he  could  not  appeal  in  this  way,  circulars  were  dis- 
tributed or  mailing  lists  made  up  to  secure  distribution. 

JVIonth  by  month  the  manager's  statement  indicates 
the  number  of  packages  delivered  on  each  of  the  twelve 
routes  in  the  city.  The  high-profit  groups  of  prospects 
are  under  constant  test  and  appeal  is  made  with  such  ac- 
curacy that  in  one  season  the  summer  trade  picked  up 
forty  per  cent. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Choosing  Profitable  Sales  Mediums 
and  Lists 

WIERE  retail  trade  centers  and  eddies  in  the  city 
of  Cleveland,  a  great  popular  store  was  recently 
established.  Back  of  this  result  were  hours  spent  by  the 
millionaire  owner  in  study  and  tabulation  of  the  pass- 
ing throng.  The  business  man  satisfied  himself  person- 
ally as  to  the  point  where  he  could  reach  the  greatest 
possible  number  of  good  prospects.  He  then  intrusted 
to  his  agents  the  tedious  negotiations  necessary  to  find 
ground  space. 

He  knew,  however,  that  they  could  buy  the  space — to 
find  the  prospect  center  was  a  quest  toe  big  for  any 
one  but  himself. 

The  advertiser  faces  a  similar  problem.  Once  having 
located  his  high-profit  prospect  districts  and  groups,  he 
has  fixed  a  standard  by  which  to  judge  the  mediums 
that,  in  varying  degrees,  offer  him  the  desired1  advertis- 
ing contact. 

The  range  of  possible  mediums  is  wide.  A  clever  ad- 
vertiser divides  the  periodical  field  alone  into  a  dozen 
classifications,  geographic  and  sociological,  professional 
and  class.  The  bill  board,  the  fence  sign,  mail  matter, 
circular   matter   and   booklets;   the   electric   sign,    the 

95 


96  SPACING  AND  MONET 

novelty,  the  moving  picture  slide,  the  sales  slip  and  the 
street  car  card — all  have  a  certain  fitness  and  reach.  Each 
medium  selects  automatically  a  different  group  as  your 
prospects.  To  be  sure  that  this  selection  is  the  best  pos- 
sible, you  must  get  at  certain  facts  about  every  one  of 
these  mediums. 

Test    and    Revision    in    the    Choice    of    Advertising 
Mediums  for  the  Campaign 

Actual  tests,  keen  observation  and  complete  records 
are  the  only  final  standard  for  judging  an  advertising 
medium.  Your  first  use  of  it  may  be  experimental.  But 
no  medium  should  pass  the  third  experiment  without 
the  seal  of  test. 

Listing  your  tried  mediums  by  combined,  inquiry  and 
sales  value  will  show  which  ones  to  abandon.  Those  at 
the  top  of  the  list  are  your  hundred  pointers — push 
them.  Others  you  can  use  with  profit  only  for  season- 
able appeals  or  intermittently  as  sales  catch  up  with 
space  cost.  Where  an  absolute  check  is  not  possible, 
circularizing  your  inquirers  and  buyers  often  clears  up  a 
choice  of  medium  which  has  puzzled  the  advertiser.  The 
country  merchant  whose  fence  signs  are  cleverly  worded, 
has  found  the  remarks  of  his  customers  proof  that  he 
was  getting  good  value  from  his  medium.  A  general 
store  in  Colorado  has  proved  by  weekly  sales,  that  the 
mimeograph  and  the  lc  letter  are  the  best  among  its  lim- 
ited advertising  means. 

Often  the  practice  rather  than  the  medium  is  at  fault. 
Where  lc  postage  has  been  found  more  profitable  than 
the  red  stamp,  the  latter  should  still  be  used  after  sea- 
sons of  unusual  change,  such  as  the  spring  and  fall  mov- 
ing time,  to  eliminate  "dead"  names  and  to  trace  pros- 
pects who  have  changed  their  address.     The  channel  for 


MAKING  UP  LISTS  97 

returned  letters  should  be  so  guarded  that  every  letter 
is  identified  and  at  once  checked  against  the  list. 

Inquiry  letters  often  develop  the  wrong  use  of  a  pos- 
sible profit  maker.  A  contest  advertised  or  carried  on 
by  private  correspondence  may  bring  out  a  fault  in  your 
understanding  of  your  readers.  One  packing  house  ad- 
vertiser sends  a  query  blank  to  his  local  office  managers 
before  renewing  any  contract  or  adopting  any  new 
medium.  Personal  and  local  knowledge  gives  him  an 
inexpensive  check  upon  his  expenditure. 

But  clever  advertisers  forestall  many  losses  due  to 
poor  mediums,  by  clean-cut  appraisement  of  unfamiliar 
means  of  publicity. 

How  to  Study  Out,  Estimate  and  Compare  the  Value 
of  New  Mediums 

Helpful  rules  for  appraising  an  advertising  medium 
as  to  its  probable  value  have  been  outlined  under  four 
heads,  as  outlined  in  the  accompanying  chart. 

1.  Territory. 

2.  Standing  of  medium. 

3.  Headers. 

4.  Uses. 

According  to  an  advertising  expert  the  first  questions 
for  any  advertiser  to  ask  concern  the  medium  in  rela- 
tion to  its  territory: 

(1)  Is  the  territory  of  this  medium  desirable  for  my 

business  ? 

(2)  Am  I  ready  to  do  business  in  this  territory? 

(3)  Is  this  medium  essential  or  valuable  in  covering 

this  territory? 
The  first  of  these  questions  forces  the  advertiser  to 
prove  whether  demand  for  his  goods  is  certain  in  the 
contemplated  section. 


98 


SPACE  AND  MONEY 


Question  2  puts  before  the  advertiser  the  necessity  of 
having  factory  or  store  capacity  and  distributing  facil- 
ities right  for  his  campaign.  Without  these  elements  no 
medium  can  pay  out. 

The  third  question  brings  up  the  extent  and  char- 
acter of  the  circulation.    Upon  this  point  circular  letter 


. 

Answer 
PerCent 

7S. 

too 

n 

90 
100 
SI 

to 

M 

100 
10* 

1 

1 

Answer 
PerCent 

75 
100 

20 

40 

iff 

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M 

HO) 

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Test    Questions 

MFnillM 

Answer 
Per  Cent 

Territory 

,    .,,           * 

Standing  of  Medium 

1       IVi  in  readers  think  well  of  if?                                   ,__.... 

* 

Readers 

1     Whet  pet  cent  of  its  readers  use,  need  or  represent  a 

2      What  per  real  hj  ve  the  neceuarv  bnvinR  pnwr)  __________ 

Use 

}     Are  tone  and  layout  of  my  advertisement  right 

for  classes  this  medium  rearhnf    , , 

3      Am  1  taking  full  advantage  of  medium  with  regard  to  space 
and  advertising  rules  and  contract/  _                    " 

Card  for  scoring  the  advantages  of  advertising  mediums  on  a  comparative  basis.    The 

eleven  questions  listed  suggest  important  investigations  into  the  value  of  a  medium. 

Upon  the  estimate  (%)  answering  each  question,  various  mediums  can  be  matched  point 

by  point  with  illuminating  results 

tests  on  portions  of  the  field  give  valuable  side  lights 
upon  the  periodical's  own  appraisement  of  its  reach. 

As  regards  the  standing  or  character  of  a  medium, 
three  questions  are  pertinent: 

( 1 )  Is  this  a  fit  personal  representative  for  my  busi- 

ness^— what  are  my  own  conclusions  as  to  the 
character  of  the  medium? 

(2)  Bo  its  readers  trust  it — what  is  the  readers' 

•pinion  of  the  medium? 


MAKING  UP  LISTS  99 

(3)     Will   my  advertisement  be  in  prosperous  and 
similar  company — what  is  the  opinion  of  com- 
peting and  representative  businesses  aa  U  the 
medium  ? 
Supposing  territory  and  character  of  medium  now  to 
be  right,  it  is  worth  while  to  remind  one's  self  of  the 
character  of  readers  who  make  profitable  prospects. 

(1)  What  percentage  of  the  readers  of  this  medium 

use,  need  or  represent  a  probable  demand  for 
my  product? 

(2)  What    percentage    have   the    necessary   buying 

power  ! 
If  the  medium  has  passed  these  tests  satisfactorily,  it 
only  remains  to  make  sure  that  the  medium  be  used  cor- 
rectly.    This  may  be  tested  by  three  questions: 

(1)  Is  this  the  right  time  to  reach  the  readers  of  ihis 

medium  f 

(2)  Is  the  tone  and  layout  of  my  copy  correct  in  its 

appeal  to  the  particular  classes  of  prospects 
this  medium  reaches? 

(3)  Am  I  taking  full  advantage  of  the  space  rules 

of  this  medium  with  regard  to  display,  prob- 
able increase  in  rates,  style,  size,  position,  clos- 
ing dates,  etc? 
The  sponsors  for  any  medium  are  sure  to  have  facts 
which  will  help  answer  these  questions.    One  prominent 
advertising  manager  has  each  medium  submit  an  ex- 
amination sheet  of  test  questions  and  replies  covering 
the   ground  thoroughly.     The  above  examination  of  a 
medium,  however,  will  bring  out,  in  unexpected  ways, 
the  genuine  and  unprejudiced  valuation  of  the  space, 
and  will  develop  the  final  considerations  of  its  use — its 
particular  reach,  restrictions  and  advantages. 


CHAPTER  XV 
How  Much  to  Spend  for  Advertising 

WHEN  the  expense  estimate  fop  the  year  is  made 
up,  advertising  expense  should  not  be  left 
among  the  items  to  be  determined  by  luck,  selling 
hypnotism  and  "the  main  chance."  Experience  and 
study  should  fix  some  standard  of  advertising  expense, 
space  sizes  and  order  cost,  which  will  make  for  greater 
efficiency  in  advertising  year  after  year. 

"Our  rule,,,  says  a  department  store  advertiser,  "is 
to  use  a  page  in  the  three  leading  newspapers,  daily  and 
Sunday." 

"My  plan,"  says  the  advertising  manager  of  a  con- 
cern manufacturing  engine  parts,  "is  to  use  such  space 
as  I  shall  never  be  forced  to  decrease.  Reducing  the 
size  of  your  advertisement  may  give  your  prospect  the 
idea  that  business  is  going  badly  and  that  your  offer 
is  not  trustworthy." 

Other  advertisers  tell  of  their  success,  built  on  use  of 
two  inch  space,  multipage  space,  or  some  other  arbi- 
trary investment. 

Is  there  any  rule  or  principle  underneath  this  con- 
fusion, which  will  serve  as  a  guide  to  the  store  adver- 
tiser, the  real  estate  man,  the  local  business  man,  and 


HOW  MUCH  TO  SPEND  101 

also  to  the  manufacturer  seeking  the  development  of  a 
national  field? 

Choosing    Your  Space  to   Suit   the  Demands   of  the 
Product  to  Be  Advertised 

One  of  the  world's  leading  advertisers  lays  down  the 
commonsense  rule  that  space  should  suit  copy,  just  as 
the  message  weights  the  letter,  and  the  contents  de- 
termine the  packing  case. 

Use  of  the  Advertising  Chart,  guided  by  immediate 
knowledge  of  your  offer,  your  prospect  and  the  season, 
has  proved  a  specially  valuable  guide  in  determining 
upon  the  most  efficient  space  unit  for  your  advertising. 

One  clever  copy  man  spent  weeks  considering  this 
problem  of  space  in  connection  with  two  well-known 
office  appliances.  Both  were  unfamiliar  to  the  average 
business  man,  and  yet  business  men  generally,  had  long 
felt  the  need  of  them.  Both  advertisements,  therefore, 
belonged  in  Class  B,  demanding  clean-cut  descriptive 
copy.  The  advertiser  gave  one  office  appliance  four 
inches,  single  column;  for  the  other,  he  used  twelve 
pages. 

The  first  appliance  was  small,  simple,  self-evident,  in- 
expensive. The  headline  made  the  merchant  say, 
" Here's  something  new."  The  illustrations  made  him 
acknowledge,  " That's  something  I  have  always  wanted." 
Three  crisp  paragraphs  were  sufficient  to  show  him  how 
the  machine  worked  and  would  fit  into  his  organization. 
A  coupon  made  it  possible  for  him  to  get  more  details, 
or  buy  off-hand  in  a  minute 's  time. 

The  second  appliance  achieves  a  result  which  every 
business  man  recognizes  as  ideal ;  but  it  was  then  some- 
thing so  revolutionary  on  the  market,  so  big,  intricate 
and  expensive,  that  a  dozen  pages  in  big  type  with  dem- 


102  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

onstrating  photographs  were  necessary  to  prove  Its 
fitness  for  this  and  that  business  clearly  enough  to  war- 
rant an  inquiry  that  would  mean  sales  interviews  and  a 
demonstration. 

;The  second  appeal,  like  the  first,  was  ia  motives  of 
utility  and  profit,  but  to  motives  deeper,  more  strongly 
controlled  and  requiring  stronger  appeal. 

Thorough  analysis  of  the  motives  underlying  your 
sale  will  go  far  to  gauge  your  space.  Self-indulgence 
acts  quickly  and  eagerly ;  the  clever  appeal  to  it  is  short 
and  sharp.  Wherever  there  is  something  big  or  unusual, 
your  copy  has  more  news  to  give.  It  is  a  rule  of  health, 
however,  always  to  leave  the  table  hungry;  the  same 
rule  applies  in  advertising.  Don't  tell  it  all.  Use  less 
space  than  seems  necessary — leave  the  reader  hungry. 

Size  of  advertisements  is  as  yet  almost  accidental. 
The  only  real  standard  must  come  from  tests  and  records 
showing  the  relative  efficiency  of  similar  pieces  of  copy 
in  space  of  various  sizes,  shapes  and  positions.  One  of 
the  advertising  men  farthest  advanced  in  this  study  has 
fixed  upon  a  five  or  six  line  classified  advertisement  as 
his  cheapest  producer,  with  fifty-six  line  display  next 
most  efficient,  and  net  cost  increasing  rapidly  up  to  full 
page  size.  Another  advertiser  has,  through  his  records, 
developed  the  fact  that  there  are  certain  seasons  only 
when  big  space  pays.  Tests  will  show  the  effectiveness 
of  each  size,  and  the  choice  then  is  merely  between  a 
few  high-profit  sales  and  many  sales  at  a  lower  rate  of 
gain^ 

The  store  manager  must  also  compromise  between  the 
claims  of  various  store  departments  for  space.  Each  de- 
partment may  be  judged  as  a  separate  selling  proposi- 
tion. Cost,  possible  profits,  depth  of  appeal,  the  length 
of  the  actual  message,    the  special   appeals,  the  news 


HOW  MUCH  TO  SPEND  103 

element,  will  decide  as  accurately  between  a  dozen  de- 
partmental announcements  as  between  different  propo- 
sitions on  a  single  page. 

Fixing  on  the  Advertising  Appropriation  Best  Adap- 
ted to  Your  Business  and  Sales  Plan 

These  same  considerations  will  help  to  fix  upon  the 
most  profitable  advertising  appropriation  for  a  cam- 
paign. In  practice,  many  of  the  largest  advertisers  in 
the  world  advertise  from  hand  to  mouth;  and  many 
small  advertisers  with  even  less  foresight.  The  executive 
officers  of  great  concerns  hold  conferences  upon  new 
propositions,  and  finance  them  to  whatever  extent  seems 
best.  Many  merchants  spend  seventy-five  or  eighty  per 
cent  of  their  season's  advertising  appropriation  on 
"Opening  Sales"  at  cut  rates.  Taken  as  a  percentage 
of  selling  cost  or  income,  the  advertising  appropriations 
of  big  businesses  are  timidity  itself  as  compared  with 
the  plunges  of  such  small  advertisers.  Advertising  is 
only  one  item  of  sales  expense,  and  must  be  balanced 
with  others  into  a  total  that  meets  competition. 

In  one  Mississippi  Valley  department  store  executive 
conferences  are  held,  where  each  buyer  forecasts  the 
popularity  of  his  lines.  With  these  leaders  as  a  basis, 
the  president  and  executives  judge  the  most  efficient 
advertising  appropriation  for  a  week,  or  a  month  ahead. 

Another  store  advertiser  writes  that  his  appropriation 
is  now  one  and  one-half  per  cent  of  sales  income,  and 
that  he  hopes  with  new  show  window  space  to  reduce  it 
to  one  per  cent.  A  national  advertiser,  working  through 
dealers,  has  fixed  upon  ten  per  cent  of  income  as  a 
maximum  for  his  campaign.  Another  national  adver- 
tiser of  engine  control  devices  makes  his  monthly  adver- 
tising expenditure  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  net  profits 


104  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

from  his  average  dull  season  month.  A  mail  order  or- 
ganization traces  down  every  inquiry  and  order  result- 
ing from  use  of  space  in  each  medium,  solving  the  ap- 
propriation problem  roughly  as  follows: 

Space  in  Magazine  No.  1 $50.00 

Inquiries  received,  100,  with  average 

follow-up  cost  of  25c  each 25.00 

Total  advertising  expense $75.00 

Orders  received  to  date,  10,  at  gross  profit 

of  $7.75  each $77.50 

Total  expense 75.00 

Net  profit $  2.50 

As  soon  as  any  medium  shows  " clear,"  it  is  at  once 
re-ordered.  As  long  as  capital  invested  in  certain  space 
pays  a  profit,  it  is  kept  busy. 

A  prominent  advertising  manager,  whose  copy  covers 
the  world,  writes: 

' '  An  appropriation  should  be  as  big  as  its  task.  Ours 
must  keep  customers  coming  to  the  retail  merchants. 
The  number  of  merchants  selling  our  line,  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  such  stores,  chiefly  set  our  figure.  Experi- 
ence soon  shows  what  the  appropriation  should  be,  and 
it  is  then  pro  rated  upon  the  cost  of  the  product. ' ' 

Where  a  new  prospect  must  be  sought  for  every  sale, 
the  advertising  appropriation  has  constantly  to  open  up 
virgin  fields.  Where  you  are  advertising  to  sell  regular 
customers  and  a  recurring  demand,  your  advertising 
appropriation  may  be  proportionately  less,  increasing 
parallel  with  the  growth  of  your  business. 

Advertising  has  many  other  meanings  than  direct 
sales.  It  may  get,  introduce  and  assist  salesmen,  or 
agents  may  be  essential  to  follow  advertising  and  get  the 
returns.  Expensive  follow-up  methods  by  letter  may  be 
necessary.  Sales  expense  is  the  constant.  Advertising 
should  receive  only  its  share  of  the  appropriation. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


How  to  Start  the  Campaign 

READINESS  is  the  secret  of  success  in  a  campaign — 
advertising  no  less  than  military.  So  manifold 
are  the  factors  to  be  set  in  time  and  tune,  that  great  care 
is  needed  in  checking  over  your  preparations  for  an 
advertising  season. 

A  million  dollar  real-estate  venture  on  the  Atlantic 
Coast  was  talked  and  advertised  as  a  future,  until  as  a 
fact  it  was  neither  novel  nor  convincing.  Possibilities, 
plans,  offers  and  promises  startled  the  public  into  re- 
newed interest  four  separate  times.  When,  however, 
the  * '  acre  lots ' '  were  actually  put  up,  under  almost  ideal 
suburban  conditions,  the  public,  tired  of  watching  for 
developments,  demanded  so  many  extra  attractions, 
premiums,  and  inducements,  that  the  campaign  was  a 
failure  among  successful  imitations. 

Advertisements  promising  the  development  of  this 
proposition  ran  for  eighteen  months  before  lots  were 
put  on  the  market.  Booklets  and  circulars  were  dis- 
tributed wherever  home  builders  or  investors  were  to  be 
found.  All  the  ordinary  turns  and  devices  of  advertising 
were  worn  out.  When  actual  sales  opened,  flamboyant 
advertising  was  necessary  to  get  the  dulled  attention  of 
possible  buyers. 

105 


106  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

Thia  extreme  instance  illustrates  a  tendency  to  open 
the  advertising  campaign  when  some  one  or  more  essen- 
tials are  not  yet  ready.  One  manufacturer  lost  heavily 
because  he  prematurely  advertised  an  article  which  was 
unexpectedly  delayed  in  manufacture.  The  letters  pro- 
testing against  the  delay  actually  forced  him  to  employ 
an  extra  complaint  man  for  six  weeks.  Another  adver- 
tiser inaugurated  a  campaign  covering  seven  states.  The 
volume  of  inquiries  demoralized  his  office  force  and 
swamped  the  field  men  on  whom  rested  the  burden  of 
making  calls  and  getting  orders.  Not  only  was  the  cam- 
paign almost  a  total  loss,  but  it  dulled  the  interest  of 
choice  prospects. 

To  avoid  this  condition,  the  advertising  man  of  a 
progressive  lumber  concern  made  out  a  table  of  factors 
in  the  campaign,  against  which  he  checks  his  prepara- 
tions before  beginning  to  advertise  for  the  spring  and 
fall  building  seasons.  This  table,  revised  and  augmented, 
is  shown  on  the  opposite  page.  Its  adaptation  to  par- 
ticular campaigns  is  easy  and  worth  while. 

Many  of  these  items  he  checks  merely  in  a  general 
way,  but  he  makes  sure  that  the  executive  policy  behind 
the  campaign  is  right  and  ready ;  and  by  hisi  daily  card 
file  he  plans  ahead  to  have  each  piece  of  copy — each 
element  in  the  whole  campaign — prepared  at  a  desig- 
nated date.  Nothing  is  passed  over  without  considera- 
tion. It  is  rare  indeed  for  him  to  lose  position  or  prefer- 
ence in  a  periodical  because  of  delay  in  submitting  cop}' 
or  furnishing  electrotypes. 

Most  advertising  experts  have  some,  plan  of  checking 
the  many  factors  involved  to  be  sure  the  campaign  is 
right  before  it  is  set  off.  Past  experiences  must  have 
been  considered,  tests  made,  successful  pieces  of  copy 
proved  out*  all  mechanical  provisions  made  to  avoid  a 


■II 


III 


CHECKING    CAMPAIGN    PREPARATIONS 


rf 


Adver- 
tising 
Campaign 

Ready? 


actoryand 
Supply 
Facilities 


_|Appropri 
ation 


Advertising 


Sales  and 
Delivery 
Facilities 


Selling 
Plans 


Copy 


-    Material 


Mediums 


-     Work      - 


Tests  and 
Records 


Season 

Classes  of  Prospects  and  Demand 

Goods 

Prices 

Sales  Schemes  and  Inducements 

Last  Season's  Record 

Determined  and 
Apportioned 

Periodical  Advertisements 
Newspaper  Advertisements  «Tt« 

Days  Ahead 
Booklets  — One  Month  Ahead 
Bill  Board,  Wagon.  Card  and  Feaci 

Signs  -One  Month  Ahead 
Circular  Letters- Seven  Day* 

Ahead 
Enclosures- Ten  Days  Ahead 
Bulletins  to  Sales  Force— Five 
Days  Ahead 

Photographs 

Cuts 

Mats  and  Electros 

Paper  Stock 

Manufacturer's  LitettMM 

Booklets 

Circulars 

Proofs 

Form    Letters 

Samples 

Newspaper  Space  and  Posttio* 
Fence  and  Bill  Board  Contracts 
Souvenirs  and  Novelties 
Prospect  Lists 

Sign  Painting  and  Placing 

Printing 

Addressing  and  Enclosing 

Placing  Advertisements 

Keeping  Stock  on  Priated 


Keys 

Checking  flan 
Record  Blanks 
Specimen  Files 


This  chart  of  the  preparations  necessary  for  a  well-balanced  advertising 
campaign  enables  the  advertiser  to  challenge  the  readiness  of  every  neces- 
sary factor  and  arrange  for  follow-up  of  the  tardy  features 


II 


IIB 


108  SPACE  AND  MONEY 

hitch.     The  campaign  starts  with  vim  and  momentum 
which  in  themselves  get  special  attention  and  favor. 

Building  Definite  Force  into  the  Plan  of  a  Local  or 
Store   Campaign 

The  most  important  things  back  of  a  national  cam- 
paign are  the  tests  for  copy,  mediums  and  territory.  The 
local  advertiser,  however,  is  less  concerned  with  the 
choice  of  territory,  and  he  has  not  many  mediums  be- 
tween which  to  choose.  He  is  specially  concerned  with 
his  routine  copy  and  the  underlying  sales  plans  or  store 
policy  which  gives  it  power.  One  successful  store  adver- 
tiser has  developed  unusual  force  in  his  advertising 
campaign  by  advertising  day  after  day  the  exact  number 
of  pieces  offered  in  any  sale,  so  as  to  hurry  his  trade; 
and  by  understating  or  merely  hinting  at  his  best  values, 
so  that  his  trade  has  come  to  expect  his  actual  bargains 
to  be  better1  than  represented.  He  has  built  confidence 
and  quick  appeal  by  a  settled  policy  planned  and  fol- 
lowed throughout  the  campaign. 

It  is  often  desirable  to  insert  timely  and  unforeseen 
appeals  into  your  campaign.  But  the  basis,  the  plans 
and  the  mechanical  details  should  be  anticipated  for  the 
very  freedom  thus  given  to  keep  check  on  the  progress 
of  the  campaign.  The  advertiser  with  free  hands  can 
often  correct  an  error  as  it  develops,  and  thus  bring 
success  out  of  a  campaign  which  otherwise  would  fail. 


an 


ii 


Part  V 


RAISING  YOUR  AVERAGE  OF 
RETURNS 


Holding  the  Stop  Watch  on  Your  Advertising 

RULE  of  thumb   advertising  wastes  millions.      That 
advertising  cannot  always  be  reduced  to  a   penny 
accurate  balance,  does  not  excuse  "guessing  it  in"  by  eye. 

Every  business  has  been  guessed  in  on  account  of  some 
variable  element  or  personal  factor.  But  all  the  time 
wiser  men  have  been  making  tests,  keeping  records, 
watching  tendencies — holding  the  stop  watch  on  motions 
and  operations.  Then  the  law  of  averages,  which  is  accur- 
ate enough  for  Billion  Dollar  Insurance  to  build  upon, 
comes  in;  the  correct  principles  of  procedure  appear,  and 
one  more  uncertain  element  in  business — one  more  maker 
of  failures — becomes  a  thing  of  the  past. 

You  can  use  the  test  tube  and  hold  the  stop  watch  on  ad- 
vertising with  the  assurance  that  it  will  cut  down  your 
percentage  of  missteps. 

You  can  test  human  groups  as  you  would  sample  wheat 
or  measure  the  heat  value  of  coal.  Underneath  the  re- 
turns from  advertising  experiments — among  the  files  and 
records  of  last  year's  advertising  campaign — you  can  find 
principles  and  averages  that  will  help  spot  mistakes  and 
build  successes. 

Even  human  motives  come  under  the  law  of  averages. 
A  vital  part  of  every  business,  therefore,  is  its  advertising 
history  upon  which,  as  a  basis,  the  concern  can  advance 
open-eyed  and  steadily  raise  the  average  of  its  returns. 


■  II 


IIB 


STRENGTHENING  THE  ADVERTISING  CAMPAIGN 
BY   DETAIL  TESTS 


Choice  To  Be  Made 


Copy  To  Use 


How  To 
Put  Out  Test 


Keying 
the  Test 


How  To 
Check  Up 


Parallel  Piece* 

Altered  Only  a* 

Necessary  (o  Suit 

Each  Class 

under  Test 


Claas  Lists  of 

M  or  More;  or 

Advertise  in  Varioaa 

Class  Mediums 


Address  or  Coupon; 

Booklet  or  Premiom 

for  Reply  Direct 

or  through,  Dealer 


tn  Order  of  Best 

Returns  (%) 


sCopy 
All 


Advertise  to,  or 
Circulsrize  Rep- 


Every  District 


list  Localities 
in  Order  of 

Showing  (%) 


•estSetliag 


Same  Copy 

Through  oat 


Advertise  to,  or 

Circularize  Average 
Prospects  on 
Various  Dates 


List  Seasons 

in  Order  of 

Showing  (%) 


Best  Selfiag  Liaes 


<\sso 

Selling 


Several  High-grade 
Advertisements  or 

Circulars  on  Each 


Reach  Definite 
Group  of  Average 
Prospects  with  each 

Advertisement 


Key  Each 

Advertisement 


In  Order  of 
Response  (%) 


List   Schemes 
in  Order  of 
Response  ['",,) 


Teat-chosen  Copy 


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st  Same  Times  in 
All  Mediums 
under  Test 


Address  or  Coupon 

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for  Reply  Direct  or 

through  Dealer 


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and  per  Order 


Profitable 
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EschUst 


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from  List  or 

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Identical  Copy 


Mall  to  Two 

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Greater 
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All  Pieces  Worthy 
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Advertisements  in 

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Mediums 


Key  Every 

Circular  or 
Copy  Insertion 


Assemble  Returns 

in  Order  of 
Net  Profit  (%)  on 
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Copy  Identical 
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.Good  Mediums 


Key  Every 
Style 


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Copy 


Color  Printing  or 
Black  and  Whiter 


Copy  Identical 
Except  as.  to 
Use  of  Colors 


Cheap  or  Expensive 


Similar  List  on 
Every  Style 


Most  Profitable 
Space  to  User 


Testt -chosen 

Copy  of  Various 

Sizes 


Cross  in  Several 
Standard  Mediums 


Key  Each  Size 
or  Better, 
Each  Piece 


List  by  Sizes  Show 
ing  Best  Profits 
(Net  and  Also 
Per  Cent ) 


Best  Paying 
Positions)* 


Test-chosen 
Pieces  of  Copy 


Cross  in  Various 

Positions   in 
Known  Mediums 


Key  Each  Piece 
of  Copy 


List  by  Keys  and 

Assemble  Keys  by 

Positions  Showing 

Best  Profits 


Each  horizontal  column  in  this  chart  develops  the  test  of  one  important 
advertising  detail.    The  expert  advertiser  carefully  works  out  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  tests  as  the  basis  of  future  campaigns 


*IK 


CHAPTER  XVII 


Testing  to  Determine  Your  Best  Copy 
and  Mediums 

IN  a  New  York  mail  order  house  a  certain  letter  ask- 
ing for  a  renewal  of  business  is  a  joke  among  the  ad- 
vertising men.  Written  by  a  minor  clerk  years  ago 
when  the  house  was  young,  the  letter  lacks  form.  It  is 
crude — almost  clumsy.  The  head  of  the  firm  has  ordered 
it  destroyed  a  score  of  times  and  his  experts  have  sub- 
stituted letters  which  the  office  agrees  are  far  better  than 
"old  go-and-get- 'em. ' '  But  when  tests  are  made  the 
ridiculed  letter  gets  the  business  and  leaves  up-to-date 
copy  far  in  the  rear. 

So  with  advertising  copy.  "If  it  goes  it  goes."  The 
criticism  of  experts  is  a  good  thing ;  but  results  and  not 
theories  are  demanded.  The  average  shows.  The  public 
is  the  court  of  last  resort  in  judging  an  advertisement. 
The  court  will  not  be  influenced  and  will  not  be  flattered. 
But  unlike  other  incorruptible1  courts,  it  will  indicate  to 
the  clever  pleader  its  future  decision. 

Straws  show  the  way  the  wind  blows  and  tests  tell 
how  copy  will  go.  The  shrewd  advertiser  of  today, 
before  beginning  a  campaign,  makes  three  important 
tests:  He  has  the  public  pass  judgment  (1)  on  his 
copy,  (2)  on  the  mediums  in  which  the  copy  is  placed 

111 


112  GREATER  RETURNS 

and  (3)  on  the  field  in  which  the  mediums  circulate. 
After  copy  is  approved,  it  ought  to  be  put  out  on  trial. 
It  should  be  keyed  and  the  results  carefully  checked. 

A  method  effectively  used  by  some  big  advertisers  is 
to  try  copy  for  a  general  campaign  in  a  metropolitan 
daily,  a  small  town  newspaper,  a  farm,  trade  or  class 
publication,  various  standard  magazines  and  a  woman's 
journal.  The  copy  is  exchanged  from  publication  to  pub- 
lication and  perhaps  inserted  several  times  in  the  same 
magazine.  By  keeping  count  of  replies  and  sales  it  is 
easy  to  find  which  advertisement  is  consistently  strong- 
est. Some  firms  and  agencies  have  kept  records  of  this 
sort  for  years.  They  know  accurately  before  they  start 
a  campaign  what  pieces  of  copy  /'take"  and  what 
mediums  bring  the  best  returns  on  their  offer.  The 
advertising  manager  also  has  before  him  at  the  beginning 
of  each  test  certain  theoretical  figures  which  indicate 
the  number  of  returns  he  should  receive  from  mediums 
and  circularizing  schemes  with  which  he  has  had  long 
experience.  If  his  best  copy  in  his  best  mediums  falls 
below  this  theoretical  standard  he  knows  that  he  must 
locate  "copy  trouble"  before  the  campaign  may  be 
staged. 

How  to  Make   Tests  for  the  Pieces  of  Copy   That 
Will  Pull  Best 

Testing  copy  marks  the  line  between  the  gambler  and 
the  investor  in  advertising.  Testing  with  sufficient  in- 
genuity settles  all  office  doubts  about  the  worth  and 
method  of  any  scheme  of  publicity.  Not  only  is  the 
test  conclusive  as  to  the  pulling  power  of  alternative 
pieces  of  copy;  but  it  frequently  shows  the  advertiser 
the  amount  of  space  to  use  to  get  the  best  percentage  of 
returns.     In  Cincinnati  a  test  showed  a  manufacturer 


TESTING  COPY 


113 


that  a  certain  single  column  advertisement  secured  him 
results  as  good  as  his  page  copy  in  the  same  mediums. 
The  difference  in  cost  turned  a  losing  venture  into  a 
paying  one. 

Trial  heats  will  in  the  average  show  the  winner  of  the 
race.  After  tests  are  made  and  checked,  the  advertise- 
ment which  brings  the  most  business  is  strengthened  by 
inserting  the  selling  points  developed  by  less  successful 
copy  and  the  follow-up  correspondence.  The  adver- 
tiser is  now  ready  for  perhaps  a  final  test  and  then  the 
campaign. 


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FORM  I:  This  8x5  card  has  been  found  very  convenient  for  recording  and  compar- 
ing returns  from  tests  in  various  mediums.  This  form  takes  account  of  orders  only. 
The  variation  of  this  form  which  has  been  most  successfully  used  is  a  separate  card 
for  each  piece  of  copy,  so  that  the  returns  on  one  advertisement  in  various  mediums 
are  in  column  for  comparison 

There  are  advertising  managers  who  would  "fire"  a 
man  for  running  one  piece  of  copy  twice,  and  there  are 
two-inch  advertisements  that  have  run  unchanged  for 
ten  years,  building  fortunes  of  seven  figures. 

The  copy  test  is  hardly  less  valuable  in  one  case  than 
in  the  other — indeed  it  alone  can  decide  whether  old  or 


114  GREATER  RETURNS 

new  copy  is  best.  It  assists  no  less  in  perfecting  circular 
letters,  booklets  and  dodgers  than  in  planning  a  "repeat' ■ 
advertisement  for  $5-a-line  space. 

After  many  tests  on  an  annual  campaign,  an  imple- 
ment man  in  a  county  seat  town  in  Kansas  perfected  a 
seasonable  circular  letter  that  brought  business  beyond 
his  fondest  hopes. 

' ■  Must  I  go  through  this  thing  again  next  season  to 
avoid  repeating  the  same  letter  to  my  old  customers  V9 
protested  the  vehicle  man,  "Must  I  again  lose  time  dur- 
ing my  business  harvest?  Where  is  this  test  idea  going 
to  end?" 

He  took  down  his  circular  letter  file  and  compared 
the  various  test  pieces  of  copy.  Soon  he  felt  that  in  two 
clever  paragraphs  lay  the  magic  appeal.  A  single  test 
proved  this  true.  ' 

Year  after  year  these  two  paragraphs  of  strong  appeal 
masquerade  before  the  farmers  of  that  county  under 
the  make-up  of  a  brand  new  personal  letter.  And  newly 
worded,  the  tested  appeal  has  never  grown  stale  or  failed 
to  get  the  business. 

Having  built  publicly  approved  copy,  the  general  or 
local  advertiser  must  still  determine  what  territory, 
classes  of  mediums  and  what  individual  periodicals  or 
other  distribution  he  will  adopt.  The  experienced  adver- 
tiser has  a  list  of  publications  with  low  rates  but  limited 
circulations  which  pull  in  constant  ratios  to  the  national 
mediums.  Advertisements  are  placed  in  these  mediums 
during  the  copy  test  and  the  results  are  checked  for 
territory  and  classes  of  circulation  as  well  as  for  copy. 

Testing  an  advertisement  presupposes  a  way  to  iden- 
tify the  returns.  Here  is  the  crux  of  the  difficulty  in 
thousands  of  advertising  departments.  Some  of  the  big- 
gest advertisers  in  the  world  are  "going  it  blind' '  on 


TESTING  COPY  115 

the  strength  of  good  luck.  Thousands  of  smaller  adver- 
tisers are  following  their  example.  These  men  have  been 
unable  to  contrive  ways  to  key  their  advertising  for 
test;  but  in  most  lines  ingenuity  and  analytical  ability 
will  go  far  toward  devising  helpful  tests. 

Standard  and  Novel  Ways  of  Keying  Your   Various 
Pieces  of  Advertising  Copy 

A  great  Chicago  department  store  frequently  tests  its 
advertising  methods  by  moving  to  an  obscure  corner  of 
the  room  the  cloak  or  gown  which  has  been  given  pub- 
licity. The  casual  shopper  passes  it  by.  The  customer 
who  has  been  attracted  by  the  advertising  asks  where 
the  article  is  to  be  found.     Count  is  kept  of  inquiries. 

In  preparing  to  market  a  line  by  a  new  national  cam- 
paign to  dealers  and  consumers,  one  manufacturer  got 
records  for  months  back,  from  dealers  in  typical  cities 
where  the  article  had  been  sold.  He  then  tested  the  new 
copy  in  the  local  newspapers  and  two  especially  strong 
national  mediums  well  represented  in  these  cities.  The 
dealers  cooperated  by  recording  sales.  The  net  in- 
crease in  business,  when  compared  with  the  advertising 
expenditures,  showed  such  possibilities  that  the  manu- 
facturer went  into  the  campaign  with  confidence. 

Anything  which  unlocks  the  results  of  advertising  is 
a  key  to  the  campaign.  The  ordinary  methods  are  the 
coupon — of  various  styles  and  shapes — identifying  the 
medium  by  the  type,  also  by  the  paper ;  and  the  varying 
departments,  street  numbers  or  names  and  initials  in- 
cluded in  the  addresses.  The  correct  address  should 
never  be  used,  as  it  is  constantly  bringing  mail  not  due 
to  any  advertisement. 

If  this  keying  is  crudely  done,  the  reader  is  annoyed 
over  having  his  scalp  hung  at  an  inquisitive  advertising 


116  GREATER  RETURNS 

man's  belt.  The  cleverest  key  is  one  which  develops 
unavoidably  when  the  purchaser  asks  for  the  goods. 

Advertising  to  do  a  certain  thing  at  a  certain  time, 
such  as  holding  an  "hour  sale,"  has  been  found  an 
effective  key  for  the  local  merchants  advertisement.  A 
watch  company  keeps  track  of  its  advertisements  by 
naming  certain  of  its  watches.  In  one  town  a  certain 
piece  of  goods  is  called  a  business  man 's  watch ;  in  an- 
other it  is  a  railroad  man's  watch;  in  another  it  is  a 
farmer's  watch.  The  local  stores  handling  the  goods 
effective  key  for  the  local  merchant's  advertisement.  A 
shoe  manufacturing  house  which  sells  direct  to  the  con- 
sumer, in  one  publication  calls  its  free  pamphlet  "How 
to  Make  Your  Feet  Glad";  in  another,  the  same  book 
is  named  ' '  Happy  Feet. ' '  A  clothing  manufacturer  uses 
a  style  number  for  his  key.  In  style  345,  the  34  indi- 
cates the  style  and  the  5  is  the  key  to  the  advertisement. 

World-wide  dealers  in  fountain  pens,  and  in  toilet 
preparations  distributed  through  retailers,  acknowledge 
inability  to  trace  actual  sales;  but  successfully  "meter" 
the  strength  of  copy,  mediums  and  trade  territories  by 
local  demand  as  reported  by  dealers  and  field  men,  and 
by  the  proportionate  number  of  requests  received  for 
various  advertised  booklets,  sample  packages  and  the 
like. 

Where  your  product  represents  a  large  expenditure, 
as  in  the  automobile  field,  sales  should  be  checked  back 
to  the  decisive  copy,  mediums  and  follow-up.  Even  in 
the  case  of  smaller  articles  keen  advertisers  often  go  to 
great  lengths  in  correspondence  and  personal  field  work 
to  know  exactly  where  business  originates  and  how  the 
advertising  checks  out.  Although  an  absolute  check 
may  not  be  made,  these  long-time  records  of  compara- 
tive efficiency  are  very  valuable. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Making  the  Campaign  Measure  Up  to 

Test 

THAT  advertising*  test  is  most  instructive  which  has 
most  closely  followed  every  condition  you  will  meet 
in  your  actual  campaign. 

A  mail  order  house  which  sells  Panama  hats  became 
converted  to  the  idea  of  testing  advertisements.  Copy 
having  been  tried  in  various  mediums  with  success,  a 
national  campaign  was  inaugurated  but  with  discourag- 
ing results. 

The  hatters  were  ready  to  resume  their  hit-or-miss 
style  of  publicity  when  an  advertising  " doctor"  pointed 
out  their  recent  error.  The  tests  had  been  conducted 
in  the  spring  and  early  summer  when  the  demand  for 
straw  hats  was  keen.  The  campaign  had  been  run  into 
midsummer,  when  most  men  had  secured  the  article  ad- 
vertised. Apparently  the  season  was  too  limited  to  per- 
mit both  test  and  campaign  in  one  year. 

The  following  year  the  tests  were  begun  early.  Orders 
and  inquiries  were  few  but  indicated  the  relative 
strength  of  various  copy,  sections  and  mediums.  When 
the  campaign  was  launched  in  the  spring  and  early  sum- 
mer, the  magazines  which  had  earlier  done  the  best  work 
continued  their  lead — and  the  shop  worked  overtime. 

117 


118  GREATER  RETURNS 

In  the  long  run,  tests  on  both  inquiries  and  orders  are 
sure  to  develop  helpful  ratios  to  the  actual  campaign  in 
similar  territory  and  with  similar  or  identical  copy  and 
mediums.  Single  tests  or  records  covering  short  periods, 
however,  must  be  considered  in  the  light  of  varying  con- 
ditions. 

How  to  Guard  Against  Features   That  May  Make 
an  Advertising  Test  Deceptive 

Certain  newspapers  will  produce  mail  order  results 
on  days  of  light  store  advertising  far  out  of  proportion 
to  other  days  in  the  week.  Position  of  copy,  whether  well 
printed,  the  amount  of  space,  the  strength  of  compet- 
ing advertisements,  must  all  be  considered.  In  some 
businesses  a  record  of  advertising  for  several  years 
proves  that  the  proposition  "pulls"  best  in  most 
mediums  when  first  advertised,  and  that  "the  cost  per 
order  advances  as  the  advertising  is  continued  before 
that  same  body  of  readers,  regardless  of  whether  the 
copy  is  changed  or  not."  Continued  returns  on  some 
one-time  propositions  keep  up  best  in  mediums  which 
change  the  mass  of  their  readers  from  season  to  season. 

The  local  merchant  must  investigate  neighborhood  con- 
ditions and  can  determine  by,  test  the  best  time  for  his 
advertisement  to  appear.  The  druggist  who  distributes 
his  advertising  at  the  curb  side  in  the  waiting  buggies 
of  his  farmer  prospects,  may  not  get  attention  until  the 
Saturday  night  drive  home;  while  the  clever  merchant 
who  reaches  his  farmers  Friday  with  announcements  of 
his  Saturday  or  "First  Monday"  sale,  has  acted 
at  the  right  time.  Rainy  seasons  make  the  farmer  read. 
Local  seasons,  celebrations  and  calamities  make  differ- 
ences between  test  and  campaign.  Every  condition 
which  affects  interest  or  buying  power  marks  on  the 


MEASURING-UP  TO  TESTS.  119 

record  of  your  advertisement.  A  sure  way  to  avoid  dis- 
appointment is  to  test  under  less  favorable  conditions, 
and,  having  found  a  plan  which  will  balance  the  cost  or 
clear  a  profit  here,  to  make  the  most  of  it  at  once. 

The  personal  temptation  to  vary  conditions  between 
test  and  campaign  must  be  curbed.  An  enthusiastic 
Northwestern  jobber  secured  a  list  of  ten  thousand 
names.  The  advertising  man  urged  a  testi  on  five  hun- 
dred or  a  thousand  names,  but  the  jobber,  in  his  enthu- 
siasm over  the  cleverness  of  the  copy,  ordered  the  entire 
campaign  out  under  two  cent  postage. 

Within  fifteen  days,  more  than  one-eighth  of  the  let- 
ters had  come  back  unclaimed.  The  list  was  stale. 
Moreover,  a  serious  mistake  had  been  made  in  the  book- 
let which  went  with  the  letter.  A  test  would  have  elim- 
inated both  these  losses. 

In  another  case  the  same  jobber  carefully  tested  out 
fifteen  hundred  high-grade  names  on  fine  stationery 
under  two  cent  postage,  only  to  mail  the  main  campaign 
under  the  green  stamp  at  a  loss.  Comparative  tests 
under  one  and  two  cent  postage  would  have  told  the 
story.  Dissimilar  conditions  only  made  the  test  mis- 
leading. 

An  eastern  manufacturer  recently  launched  a  season- 
able dealer  campaign  after  making  workmanlike  tests 
of  seven  different  styles  of  copy.  One  set  of  commercial 
literature  had  scored  profitable  returns  (3%  per  cent) 
on  a  very  difficult  sale.  At  once  the  full  campaign  was 
put  out  carrying  these  prices  of  copy ;  but  delay  in  mak- 
ing up  the  returns  on  the  tests  had  brought  the  season 
almost  to  an  end  before  the  full  supply  of  literature 
came  from  the  press,  and  the  campaign  proved  a  failure. 

Accuracy  and  dispatch  are  the  essentials  of  campaign- 
ing by  test. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

Keeping  Reference  Records  and  Speci- 
men Advertisements 

CENTER  in  one  responsible  and  efficient  person  the 
full  responsibility  for  accurate  records  and  files  of 
your  advertising,  its  cost  and  its  returns. 

An  adroit  business  man  who  has  built  his  success  upon 
advertising,  charges  a  worse  error  against  his  auditor  for 
losing  a  single  count  in  an  advertising  test,  than  he  might 
for  dropping  a  significant  cipher  in  the  ledger.  This 
man  has  found  that  in  his  business  a  skilful  test  will 
average  within  from  eight  to  fifteen  per  cent  of  cam- 
paign profits.  Failure  to  count  an  order,  or  a  few  un- 
identified inquires  might  lead  him  to  discard  winning 
copy — the  seed  from  which  sales  spring. 

One  of  the  chief  assets  of  this  advertiser  is  his  record 
of  past  results.  The  man  who  believes  that  he  can  keep 
such  results  in  his  head,  or  who  glances  through  the 
mail,  " estimates' '  the  strength  of  various  tests  and 
selects  mediums  by  opinion,  is  deliberately  draining 
profits  into  loss. 

Often  an  advertising  man  must  assert  himself  in  the 
most  decided  way  to  establish  and  maintain  a  genuine 
testing  and  record  system  in  the  office  routine.  A  divi- 
sion advertising  manager  who  had  worked  out  tested 

1*0 


KEEPING  RECORDS 


121 


copy  and  follow-up  literature  was  called  to  the  New 
York  office  recently  to  account  for  lagging  business. 
The  charge  was  that  his  copy  was  bad.  He  drew  from 
his  pocket  a  record  card  and  proved  that  in  three  separ- 
ate tests  the  copy  had  proved  itself  high-grade.  "How 
about  returns  now?"  was  the  general  manager's  ques- 
tion. "That  I  cannot  say  without  getting  up-to- 
date  records  from  the  correspondence  department,"  said 
the  advertising  man;  "but  I  have  seen  a  large  number 
of  coupons  and  miscellaneous  inquiries  in  the  mail  from 
dav  to  dav." 


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FORM  I:    A  bandy  card  for  accounting  orders  on  one  piece  of  copy  n  a  single  med- 
ium during  three  months 

The  advertising  manager  returned  to  the  branch  office, 
went  into  the  follow-up  division  and  found  that  an 
average  of  forty  inquiries  per  day  on  a  $22.50  propo- 


122  GREATER  RETURNS 

Bition  were  being  allowed  to  grow  stale  for  perfunctory 
follow-up  at  three  weeks  intervals  through  the  careless- 
ness of  subordinates  and  poor  stock  keeping  on  the  fol- 
low-up literature.  The  desk  drawers  in  the  department 
were  crammed  with  uncared  for  work  of  this  sort  be- 
cause no  proper  head  kept  tight  rein  and  demanded 
records  every  day. 

In  another  instance  an  advertising  manager  was  work- 
ing to  convince  an  employer  prejudiced  against  his  pub- 
licity. Orders  and  inquiries  came  in  well  but  envelopes 
bearing  the  street  or  department  *  'keys"  were  often 
thrown  into  the  waste  basket  by  a  careless  letter  opener 
and  by  stenographers  to  whom  the  correspondence  had 
been  given  before  it  was  properly  checked  up.  The  ad- 
vertising man  was  perpetually  running  a  race  with  the 
colored  porter  to  keep  the  keyed  envelopes  from  the 
flames.  Checking  returns  at  the  cashier's  desk  would 
have  eliminated  this  element  of  doubt  from  the  business. 

While  these  are  extreme  examples,  it  is  nevertheless 
true  that  the  machinery  of  tests,  records  and  follow-up 
is  the  most  valuable  and  the  most  abused  machinery  in 
many  businesses ;  and  that  it  merits  no  less  care  than  the 
actual  disbursement  of  funds. 

Form  I  gives  space  for  a  simple  record  of  orders 
from  one  piece  of  copy  in  one  medium  during  three 
months.  A  different  colored  card  can  be  used  for 
inquiries  on  the  same  copy.  This  card  has  the  advan- 
tage of  enabling  the  addition  of  each  column  and  the 
total  by  months,  as  well  as  the  grand  total. 

Often,  as  in  automobile  sales,  a  card  form  is  wanted 
for  recording  an  inquiry,  follow-up  literature  and  the 
subsequent  order.  This  is  handily  kept  on  a  3x5  card 
(Form  II). 

The  willingness  to  keep  records  often  is  hampered  by 


KEEPING  RECORDS 


123 


iack  of  system.  One  Chicago  man,  finding  that  the  or- 
dinary scrap  books  were  not  large  enough  for  his  pur- 
pose, secured  the  largest  size  loose-leaf  invoice  books; 
The  advertisements  were  pasted  on  manila  sheets  and 
kept  until  out  of  date.  Then  they  were  removed  from 
the  covers,  tied  up  and  stored  in  a  confidential  file  in 
the  vault.  To  each  advertisement  is  attached  a  printed 
slip  showing  the  total  sales  and  inquiries  traced 
to  the  copy,  the  medium  in  which  it  appeared  and  the 
number  of  times  it  ran.  Another  sheet  shows  in  detail 
the  cost  of  the  advertisement  proportioned  among  the 
various  departments  of  the  store 


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FORM  II:  In  the  left-hand  column  are  indicated  the  follow-up  mailings  from  the 
time  an  inquirer  responds  to  an  advertisement,  until  sale  is  made  or  follow-up  aban- 
doned. The  card  is  filed  alphabetically  by  name  and  a  duplicate  paper  slip,  made  over 
the  original,  can  be  filed  geographically  for  reference.  The  cards  are  conveniently 
printed  and  typewritten  sheets  of  three 

This  plan  of  filing  returns  on  advertisements  with 
the  copy  is  cumbersome.  One  system  which  has  worked 
out  with  much  success  is  the  result  of  development  dur- 
ing the  past  four  years.  The  advertiser  has  written  and 
placed  advertisements  of  all  sizes  on  a  dozen  different 
propositions  and   also   circular   letters  and  commercial 


124  GREATER  RETURNS 

literature  on  various  offers.  Every  advertisement  car- 
ries at  the  bottom  a  number  in,  five  point  type.  Every 
piece  of  commercial  literature  also  carries  a  number; 
and  every  circular  letter  has  at  the  bottom,  following 
the  stenographer's  initials,  a  similar  key.  This  not 
merely  identifies  every  proposition,  but  affords  a  basis 
for  filing,  noting  results  upon  and  re-ordering  or  fol- 
lowing through  every  piece  of  copy  which  the  depart- 
ment handles.  Periodical  copy  is  numbered  from  one 
up,  in  five  different  groups,  identified  by  the  letters  A, 
B,  C,  D,  E,  as  A25,  B26.  The  letter  indicates  the  propo- 
sition the  copy  covers.  Specimens  are  filed  numerically 
in  folders,  one  for  each  class  letter.  Three  copies  of 
each  advertisement  are  usually  put  in  so  that  there  are 
extra  copies  at  need.  They  are  not  pasted.  Folder  con- 
tents are  transferred  from  the  vertical  desk  file  to  the 
vault  every  year,  so  that  the  folders  are  never  cum- 
bersome. 

Circular  letters  and  commercial  literature  on  different 
propositions  are  filed  in  the  same  way  under  subsequent 
letters  of  the  alphabet.  The  letter  and  number  at  the 
top  of  any  record  card  identifies  the  advertisement  and 
indicates  at  a  glance  what  kind  it  is  and!  on  what  class 
of  goods.  In  ordering  a  new  run  of  a  standard  circular 
letter,  or  applying  to  the  stockroom  for  a  supply,  all 
that  is  necessary  is  to  give  the  letter  and  key  number  of 
the  circular  wanted.  This  system  also  facilitates  stock 
keeping  and  the  perpetual  inventory  which  enables  the 
advertising  man  to  use  up  circulars  while  they  possess 
selling  value. 

The  cut,  drawing  and  photograph  cabinets  are  ar- 
ranged in  the  same  way  by  letter  and  key  number,  show- 
ing the  relation  of  every  cut  to  the  advertising  campaign 
and  specimen  file. 


CHAPTER  XX 

How    to    Plan  Your  Next  Campaign 
by  Past  Averages 

ADVERTISING  records  properly  kept  are  the  mili- 
tary maps  of  the  country  fought  over  last  year  and 
again  to  be  the  scene  of  the  campaign.  They  may  be 
used  in  scores  of  ways ;  they  indicate  the  relative  value 
of  first  and  third  class  postage,  of  personal  and  circular 
letters,  of  printed  matter  of  different  kinds,  with  illus- 
trations of  various  sizes  and  positions,  of  sales  schemes, 
coupons,  and  every  selling  device  put  to  test.  They  show 
the  best  seasons,  and  in  one  instance  prompted  enlarging 
an  ordinary  half  page  into  three  full  pages  with  pro- 
portional profit  each  spring  and  fall. 

What  Records  of  Advertising    Tests   and  Campaigns 
Can  Be  Made  to  Show 

Nearly  half  a  million  dollars  was  spent  last  spring  by 
a  mail  order  concern  for  colored  inserts  in  its  catalogs. 
This  expenditure  is  based  chiefly  on  one  season's  experi- 
ence with  colored  illustrations.  During  that  season 
colored  illustrations  in  connection  with  revised  and 
strengthened  copy  showed  a  good  increase  in  business 
over  the  previous  year. 

Perhaps   it  was  the   colors  that  brought   business — 

125 


126  GREATER  RETURNS 

perhaps,  the  new  copy;  perhaps  other  and  unconsidered 
factors.  It  would  have  been  easy  to  test  out  in  adjacent 
counties,  two  circulars  identical  except  for  the  use  of 
colors,  but  no  test  seems  to  have  been  made.  Another 
mail  order  concern  does  not  use  colored  illustrations  to 
nearly  so  great  an  extent,  considering  it  better,  wherever 
possible,  to  rely  on  inquiries  for  actual  samples  that  will 
show  texture. 

Opinions — but  no  tests.  Progress  for  both — through 
good  luck  and  the  great  virgin  field  of  American  pur- 
chasers. 

Advertising  success  cannot  be  developed  in  this  way. 
Every  general  advertiser  and  every  local  merchant  owe 
it  to  the  business  to  set  aside  sufficient  money  to  keep  a 
record  of  advertising  experiments  and  experiences. 

Having  kept  a  file  of  advertising  specimens  and  a 
record  of  costs,  inquiries,  follow-up  costs,  orders  and 
profits,  and  so  keyed  the  advertising  as  to  distinguish 
the  different  pieces  of  copy  and  different  mediums  as 
completely  as  clerical  expense  makes  advisable,  the  ad- 
vertiser can  turn  to  his  records  and  map  out  the  next 
campaign  with,  almost  the  same  certainty  that  he  plans 
for  a  new  building  or  employs  and  trains  help.  Of  the 
many  vital  business  facts  so  developed,  the  following 
are  only  a)  few: 

"On  my  proposition  logical  copy  with  well  authen- 
ticated testimonials  sells  to  men ;  but  a  woman  wants  the 
name  of  some  one  in  her  town  to  whom  she  can  go  for 
personal  testimony." 

* '  Only  seventeen  mediums  out  of  a  list  of  thirty-seven 
magazines  and  newspapers  proved  profitable  for  me. 
Newspaper  inquiries  come  cheaper  but  seem  to  include 
more  curiosity  seekers,  as  the  cost  of  orders  runs 
higher." 


BUILDING  ON  RECORDS  127 

This  advertiser  went  to  great  lengths  to  trace  down 
every  inquiry  and  order  to  its  proper  advertisement  and 
medium,  even  where  this  meant  hours  of  work  and  letter 
writing  to  credit  an  advertisement  that  had  appeared 
years  before.  Now,  however,  he  knows  to  a  penny  just 
what  inquiries  and  orders  to  date  have  cost  him  in  every 
medium;  and  not  only  what  pieces  of  copy  to  repeat, 
but  what  circular  letters  he  can  send  each  new  prospect, 
in  what  mediums  he  shall  re-order  space,  what  mediums 
he  must  cancel  entirely  and  what  mediums  may  pos- 
sibly pay  him  after  holding  out  his  advertisement  sev- 
eral months  until  tardy  returns  catch  up  with  space  cost. 

This  advertiser  insists  that  his  first  advertisements 
pay  best  and  that  thereafter  he  sells  at  gradually  in- 
creasing cost.  So  records  will  show  the  relative  value 
to  your  business,  of  newspapers,  news-stand  circulation, 
magazines  that  renew  constantly  and  magazines  that  con- 
stantly reach  new  readers. 

As  the  new  campaign  is  to  be  opened,  therefore,  study 
and  tabulate  the  results  of  past  campaigns  in  a  way  to 
develop  the  efficiency  of  different  appeals,  different 
pieces  of  copy,  different  styles  of  illustration,  different 
sizes,  different  shapes  and  positions,  blind  versus  signed 
advertising  and  any  publicity  question  that  puzzles  you. 

The  success  of  one  advertising  agency  is  ad- 
mittedly based  on  the  amount  of  evidence  accumu- 
lated as  to  copy,  seasons,  prospects,  fields  and  publica- 
tions. This  agency  can  closely  forecast  what  reception 
will  be  accorded  an  advertising  campaign.  The  propor- 
tions between  mediums  used  for  testing  and  mediums 
used  in  making  the  final  appeal  have  been  so  carefully; 
worked  out  that  results  are  not  a  matter  of  conjecture, 
but  may  almost  be  written  ahead. 

Store  advertising  cannot  so  easily  be  put  on  a  ledger 


128  GREATER  RETURNS 

basis,  but  last  year's  advertising  specimens  and  records 
will  suggest  to  the  storekeeper  what  to  buy  this  year, 
what  will  be  the  most  popular  as  well  as  how  best  to  de- 
scribe and  illustrate  it,  what  mediums  and  sales  schemes 
are  most  valuable  and  what  sections  will  produce  the 
most  trade  or  need  the  most  effort. 

A  Southern  department  store  advertiser  has  a  daily 
sheet  on  which  are  tabulated  for  today  and  for  the  cor- 
responding week-day  last  year,  the  sales  income  and  the 
advertising  expense  of  each  store  section.  This  record 
enables  him  to  develop  each  department  as  it  shows 
seasonable  chances  of  profit. 

A  clothing  store  has  a  special  ruled  form  which  the 
advertising  manager  keeps  under  the  glass  top  of  his 
desk.  This  form  shows  the  condition  of  stock  and  the 
amount  of  business  done  every  day  for  the  past  year. 
There  is  also  room  on  the  form  for  notes  regarding 
weather  or  other  unusual  circumstances.  When  planning 
publicity,  the  advertisement  writer  looks  over  his  chart. 
He  sees,  for  instance,  that  business  in  the  men's  furnish- 
ings is  not  up  to  the  standard  maintained  on  the  same 
day  of  other  years.    He  calls  the  department  manager. 

Reference  to  the  manager's  detailed  charts  shows  that 
a  certain  style  of  hat  is  not  moving  as  rapidly  as  it 
ought.  As  a  result,  copy  is  concentrated  on  that  line, 
prices  are  cut  if  need  be  and  the  department  is  cleared 
of  its  dead  wood  before  the  opportunity  slips  away.  In 
this  manner,  day  by  day  and  year  by  year  the  business 
of  each  department  is  steadied  and  graded  upward  with 
a  minimum  of  false  steps. 

Experience  is  the  final  word  in  advertising.  The  ex- 
pert advertising  man  gets  it — gets  it  on  paper — and 
handles  it  with  open  eyes,  like  a  ledger  sheet,  on  the 
basis  only  of  what  his  advertising  produces. 


iiveisiiy  Lioranes 


DUKE  UNIVERSITY 
LIBRARY 


DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 
27706 


